07

Renaturing

2 GOLD VI REPORT
 Source: Vickry Alvian, Unsplash.
Bojong Genteng, Indonesia.

07 RENATURING 3
Chapter Curators Adriana Allen
(Professor of Development Planning and Urban
Sustainability, The Bartlett Development
Planning Unit, University College London, UK)

Mark Swilling
(Co-Director and Distinguished Professor,
Centre for Sustainability Transitions,
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Isabelle Anguelovski
(Director of BCNUEJ and ICREA
Research Professor, Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain)

Contributors
This chapter has been produced based on the following valuable contributions, which are available
as part of the GOLD VI Working Paper Series and the Pathways to Equality Cases Repository:

Sustainable Energy Access in Urban Areas Modesta Tochi Alozie

(University of Warwick)

Vanesa Castán Broto

Patty Romero-Lankao
(National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Pedro Henrique Campello Torres

(University of Sao Paulo)

Matteo Muratori
(National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Caiçaras, Artisanal Fishermen, and Karina da Silva Coelho

Guarani M’byá’s territories between (Social Anthropology PhD Candidate
Protected Areas and Paranagua’s Port at University of Sao Paulo)

Fighting climate change in cities: Pierre Arnold

urban agriculture, green and affordable Nina Quintas
homes and neighbourhoods (urbaMonde, CoHabitat Network)

Building Resilience in Times of Crisis: The Waste Sonia Maria Dias

& Citizenship Forum in Belo Horizonte, Brazil Ana Carolina Ogando
(Women in Informal Employment
Globalizing and Organizing)

Reviving Urban Agriculture Joseph Schechla

(Housing and Land Rights Network –
Habitat International Coalition)
Energy Transition of Chefchaouen city Hajar Khamlichi
Karim Elgendy
(Carboun)

Community based Production of Waste- Teddy Kisembo

Based Energy, Kampala, Uganda Judith Mbabazi
Paul I. Mukwaya
(The Urban Action Lab, Makerere University)

Partnership for Resilient Citywide Slum Ariana Karamallis

Upgrading, Cape Town, South Africa Charlton Ziervogel
(Slum Dwellers International)

Cities and Regions Race to Zero – Local Rodrigo Messias

decarbonization pathways (UCLG Ecological Transition)

Building Resilience with Nature: Valeria Carrión

Restoring ecosystems and communities (UCLG Learning)
through public policies
Source: Transport Secretariat, Buenos Aires City Council (GCBA), Argentina.
Cities and regions, Race to Zero and the promotion of sustainable mobility.

Abstract
This chapter highlights the need to consider urban-
ization and nature as an integrated whole. Historically,
cities started off as minor insertions within wider robust
ecological landscapes. Today, cities are the consumers
of the bulk of the resources extracted from nature,
and the source of almost all negative environmental
impacts. If the relationship between cities and nature
does not change, nature’s life-support systems will be
unable to sustain a global population of over nine billion
by 2050. Renaturing is thus about reimagining how this
can be done in just and practical ways. Achieving territo-
rial and urban equality will depend on the reembedding
of urban systems within natural systems in ways that
restore the vitality of both, while supporting the needs
and identities of historically marginalized groups.
“Renaturing urbanization” means addressing the spatial
manifestation of multiple global societal challenges to
of health and well-being for everyone, the protection of
ecosystems, sustainable (and more circular) resource
use, and just resilience to climate change. This will
require a critical examination of unwanted impacts,
ecological systems and services, processes of green
- renaturing actions, programmes and policies, as well
tion of risk to particular social groups and geographies.
A transformation pathway that renatures urbanization
will require transcending the economic dependence
on natural resource extraction and carbon intensive
development that currently exacerbate socio-economic
inequalities and cause socio-environmental injustices.
As resource scarcities and climate impacts intensify,
problems associated with colonial, patriarchal relations
and their expression, particularly at the intersection
with gender, class, race, age and mental and physical
-
equacy of planning systems, and prevailing approaches
that neglect “informal” city-making processes become
increasingly intractable.
07 RENATURING
ABSTRACT
In response to the intersection of urbanization and
climate challenges, more and more municipalities in the
Global North and Global South are adopting ambitious
interventions to “renature the city”. Many are designing
and offering improved environmental amenities to urban
residents while addressing climate goals. They, together
with other local and regional governments, do so by
strengthening vital systems for food and water security,
increasing neighbourhood attractiveness, creating
recreational opportunities, revitalizing local economies,
and improving the health of their residents. While real
world examples of substantial urban transformations
are not always easy to identify and cities remain
confronted with acute socio-ecological challenges,
this chapter examines how transformational pathways
are being crafted in practice and why they matter.
In doing so, the aim is neither to provide prescriptive
measures for what should be done, nor to glorify the
experiences examined allow for inspiration and learning
from current and ongoing approaches and initiatives,
while casting a critical eye on both their potentials and
shortcomings. Furthermore, our aim is to acknowledge
the diverse factors that might converge in triggering
as the actual conditions that might enable cities to
become transformative in different contexts in order
to address deeply entrenched and destructive trends.
7
3.3 to 3.6bn people At least 896m people 6,500,000
live in contexts that are 2.9m
deaths a year
highly vulnerable to climate 90% of the 300m people
change.a By 2050, 1 bn people
d

! 6.5m deaths a year,

! e f

48m people + 350m (+1.5ºC) 95% of the global population

more than 2.5 times + 410.7m (+2ºC)

Global impacts of climate change Uneven distribution of climate change risks and impacts

Why
renaturing?
Unsustainable urban growth and its Unsustainable infrastructure
pressure on natural resources
developing countries developed countries

219 watts per capita 880 watts per capita

k 3-5%
i

4.5 trillion USD

1m km2 2.5m km h
(in 2013) (in 2050)

k
Annual investment 25.4%
Electricity
needed
9.2% h
Heat
384bn USD 384bn USD
40bn tonnes 90bn tonnes 3.4%
Transport 40-80%
(in 2010) (in 2050)
Renaturing Decoupling urban development from
environmental degradation, promoting
more symbiotic relations between urban
• Just and sustainable
forms of urbanism
Towards
urban and
pathway
and rural territories to reduce resource • Territorial economic
development decoupled

territorial
well-being from rising resource use.
from natural resource
extraction

• Integrated urban and

equality
Addressing mitigation and adaptation natural systems
through integrated planning and mul-

A just ecological transition

tisectoral policies, fostering proximity, • Enhanced health, rights
improving health and well-being for all and well-being of current
and promoting regulatory interventions
and future generations
that increase affordability and reduce
green gentrification and the negative • Protected ecosystems
impacts of urban sprawl.

Improving urban governance to

Shifting from economic dependence on • Buildings and
natural resource extraction to less car- infrastructure resilient to
enable just and sustainable transi-
bon-intensive development to reduce the climate change
tions. This involves setting up pro-
gressive political coalitions to create human impact on the environment, while
governance modalities that deal with alleviating socio-economic inequalities and
complexity – i.e. “collibration” – to facil- socio-environmental injustices.
itate democratic decision-making and
forward-looking planning responsive
to social and environmental diversity.

Promoting interconnected interven- Adopting and promoting a rights-based

tions at intra-, inter-urban and re- approach with purposeful actions,
gional scales, for better management
of natural resources, energy and food of renaturing and the protection of the
systems, as well as improved adap- urban commons.
tation and resilience. Interventions Revising local taxes and adopting
include, amongst others, equalization
mechanisms and the promotion of incentives to support environmental
solidarity and territorial cohesion. improvements, protecting disadvan-
taged groups from negative impacts.
Local, regional and national partner-
ships to fund climate mitigation and
adaptation are critical.

How can urban systems be

reintegrated into natural systems,
sustainably including the “green” in the
urban and the urban in the “green”? Explicitly promoting the social produc-
tion of housing and infrastructure, pro-
tecting the rights of everyday city-mak-
ers and their livelihood practices that can Responding to long-term inequalities
renature cities. This involves providing through intersectional and inclusive
How can territorial economic dependence on renaturing actions. Just transitions
natural resource extraction be transcended while support to civic-driven practices. call for tackling maldistribution and
also tackling the uneven distribution of risks misrecognition. Participatory planning
for marginalized groups, such as displacement, can accelerate transformative adapta-
tion and reduce the uneven distribution
of risks for marginalized groups.
1 INTRoDUCTIoN
1 Introduction
The Renaturing pathway demonstrates how urbaniza-
tion and nature can be seen as an integrated interde-
pendent whole. Historically speaking, cities started
off as minor insertions within wider robust ecological
landscapes. Today, urban regions are the consumers
of the bulk of resources extracted from nature, and the
source of the most negative environmental impacts.
If the relationship between cities and nature does not
change, nature’s life-support systems will be unable to
sustain a global population of over nine billion by 2050,
of which 66% will live in urban areas. Renaturing is about
reimagining how this could be done in just and practical
ways. Achieving territorial and urban equality will
depend on the reembedding of urban systems within
natural systems in ways that restore the vitality of
both, while supporting everyone’s Right to the City
and, in particular, guaranteeing the needs and rights
of those who have been historically marginalized.
urbanization processes and dynamics that are seen
as being embedded within wider ecological systems.
Drawing on several strands of urban studies,1 this chapter
approaches renaturing as: a way of seeing, restoring and
enhancing urban-nature relations; a representation of
a complex empirical reality; a vision towards a better
future; and a means of guiding and inspiring transforma-
tive practices. For well over a century (despite Ebenezer
1 Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw, In the Nature of Cities.
Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism (London:
Environmental Justice and Urban Resilience in the Global South (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Timothy Beatley, Biophilic Cities. Integrating
Nature into Urban Design and Planning (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010);
Joan Clos, “Introduction,” in The Quito Papers and the New Urban Agenda, ed.
UN-Habitat (London: Routledge, 2018); Paul Klugman Currie, “A Resource
Flow Typology of African Cities” (Stellenbosch University, 2015),
https://bit.ly/3MlwLmX; Peter M. Allen, “Cities and Regions as Evolutionary
Complex Systems,” Journal of Geographical Systems 4, no. 1 (1995): 103–30;
Mike Hodson et al., “Reshaping Urban Infrastructure: Material Flow
10
conception of the “garden city”) urbanism has, both in
theory and in practice, mainly been about seeing towns
and cities as entities disconnected from ecological
systems and which destroy them. Ecological systems
have typically been treated as sources of material
resources cities required to access and extract, and
as the sinks into which waste was disposed. In recent
decades, the largely negative impact of urban systems
on ecological systems has fully come into focus. Even
so, this “environmental impact” paradigm (which forms
the basis for the environmental impact assessments
that have now become mandatory for the property
development sector) still sees urban systems as being
somehow external to ecological systems. According to
this anthropocentric point of view, the environment is,
at best, something that should be “protected” so that it
can continue to meet the resource demands that urban
systems place upon it. Examining the embeddedness
of urban systems within wider ecological systems
brings into focus the integrated interdependencies
of our urban-ecological system and the fact that it is
inseparable from the wider evolutionary web of life.
Expressed in a more colloquial way: it is not a matter
of including “green” in what is urban; instead, it is a
question of sustainably incorporating the urban into
what is “green”.
Analysis and Transitions Analysis in an Urban Context,” Journal of Industrial
Ecology 16, no. 6 (2012): 789–800; George Martine et al., The New Global
Frontier. Urbanization, Poverty and Environment in the 21st Century (London:
Routledge, 2008); Mohsen Mostafavi, “Why Ecological Urbanism? Why Now?,”
in Infrastructure Sustainability and Design, ed. Spiro Pollalis et al. (London:
Routledge, 2012); Joe Ravetz, City-Region 2020: Integrated Planning for a
Sustainable Environment (London: Routledge, 2000); Mark Swilling and
Maarten Hajer, “Governance of Urban Transitions: Towards Sustainable
Environmental Research Letters
12, no. 12 (2017): 125007.
GOLD VI REPORT
 1 INTRoDUCTIoN

-
ment and spatial exclusion; the over-consumption of
In the past, towns and cities were never, in reality, resources by the few; and the externalization of risk to
completely divorced from ecological systems; that was particular social groups and geographies.
just how we perceived them. As a result, we were able to
blindly build highly unequal towns and cities, which are A transformative pathway that renatures urbaniza-
now home to the majority of the people on the planet. tion implies transcending the current economic
And we did it in a way that completely disregarded the dependence on natural resource extraction and
impact they had on the web of life on which we humans carbon intensive development, which exacerbate
depend, and which is effectively our life support system.
In this way, urbanization became the way in which a
small elite of a dominant species managed to steal the
natural commons from all the other species for the sake
of material wealth and the power to control nature using

Hence the notion of “renaturing urbanization”; this

implies returning to what empirical evidence clearly
shows to be true: urban life cannot be disconnected
from nature. There is, however, a normative dimension:
urban-ecological systems can be more or less equitable
across their spectrum (poverty, inequalities, exclu-
sion), and also more or less ecologically sustainable
(carbonization and natural resource use). Today, most
cities are both unequal and unsustainable: 75% of the
world’s cities are now more unequal than they were 20
years ago (as explained in Chapter 2).2 The great danger
facing human society is that, as decarbonization and
“greening” set in, cities could be “greened” and yet
still remain unequal. Similarly, they could become
more equal at the expense of their ecological systems.
This Report is about both problems, which have clear
implications for local and regional governments (LRGs),
which feel pressure, and have the responsibility, to
choose and follow both more equitable and more
ecological sustainable pathways. A just urban transition
to a more equitable and sustainable world must restore
the balance that was lost when urbanization became a

destroyed the global commons.

“Renaturing urbanization” means addressing the root

causes of the many global and local challenges that
currently threaten the well-being of all human and
non-human species. The solutions are well-known: (a)
improving human health and well-being; (b) protecting
the ecosystem health and services; (c) promoting a
more sustainable (and more circular) use of resources;
and (d) building infrastructures that are resilient to
climate change. Renaturing therefore also requires
a critical examination of unwanted impacts, such as:
Source: Diego Ibarra Sanchez, The New York Times.
“Agricultural Jihad”: To cope with the complex crisis in Lebanon, Michel Zarazir, a

2 Clos, “Introduction”.

07 RENATURING 11
1 INTRoDUCTIoN
socio-economic inequalities and socio-environmental
injustices. As resource scarcities and climate impacts
intensify, so do problems with long-term trajectories,
- to acknowledge the diverse factors that may converge
of nature and urban life; the neglect for what are often
called “informal” processes, which provide dwellings and
livelihoods for the vast majority of the urban population;
and the inadequacy of current planning systems.
LRGs around the world are currently experimenting
with ambitious interventions to renature the city and
the wider territorial systems on which they depend.
Some of these interventions seek to offer improved
environmental amenities to urban residents while also
addressing climate goals. They do so by strengthening
vital systems for food and water security, increasing
neighbourhood liveability, creating recreational oppor-
tunities, revitalizing local economies and improving the
health of local residents. While real world examples of
substantial change are not always easy to identify, this
chapter examines how transformational approaches
are being crafted in practice and why they matter.
In doing so, the aim is neither to provide prescriptive
measures for what should be done, nor to glorify the
28 experiences from the Global North and Global South
Figure 7.1
Pathways for local and regional
governments
Inclusive Just and
urbanism sustainable
urbanism
Neoliberal Green
urbanism urbanism
Source: authors
12
and help people to learn from both past and ongoing
approaches and initiatives, while casting a critical eye on
both their potentials and shortcomings. The aim is also
and help to trigger renaturing actions, programmes
and policies, as well as those that could perhaps enable
cities to become more transformative, within their many
and varied contexts.
Renaturing urbanization is useful for LRGs because it
helps them to understand their current pathways if all
else remains equal: where they may be heading as a
consequence of the status quo, and what would need to
change for them to achieve an optimal balance between
greater social equity and ecological sustainability. Refer-
ences to a “just transition” essentially refer to the top-right
quadrant of Figure 7.1: a pathway to more socially just
and ecologically sustainable towns and cities. However,
an unjust transition is always a distinct possibility. This
could entail decarbonizing the urban system and making it
-
ities (green urbanism). On the other hand, an inclusive,
redistributive focus (inclusive urbanism) may work in the
short term, but over the longer term the contradictions
of climate change and resource depletion could under-
mine what had previously been achieved and could be
sustained into the future. Renaturing urbanization is
about framing the challenges that LRGs will face if they
commit to a pathway towards a just and sustainable form
of urbanism. It also helps to reveal the tensions potentially
associated with other pathways.
Building upon the considerations outlined above, this
chapter explores three different, but complementary,
approaches through which transformative action
towards more just and sustainable urban and territorial
development can be put in practice. These approaches
could be triggered by forward-looking city strategies,
reactions to local or global crises, measures taken to
adapt to chronic stresses, or a combination of these
factors.3 The next section starts by examining the
wider recalibration of governance required to sustain
renaturing as a transformative pathway. The following
sections then explore the opportunities and prece-
dents that have emerged from different approaches
why and how a social justice perspective is crucial for
consolidating such approaches, and for ensuring that
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
3 Caren Levy et al., “Unlocking Urban Trajectories: Planning for
Environmentally Just Transitions in Asia,” in Sustainable Cities in Asia, ed.
Federico Caprotti and Li Yu (London: Routledge, 2017).
GOLD VI REPORT

2 Towards
collibratory urban-
nature governance
Accelerated urbanization has resulted in highly complex
urban systems that are challenging to govern. At the
same time, the interlinked environmental crisis and
the challenge of inequalities have resulted in an urgent
need for directionality, as outlined in SDG 11. However,
complexity and directionality are not easily reconciled:
while complexity implies emergent outcomes that are
not easily controlled,4 directionality implies mission-ori-
ented governance to achieve particular goals.5 As a
result, those who appreciate complexity tend to under-
play the need for directionality, and those who desire
directionality to address the crises that cities face
while under-emphasizing complexity. These stances
can, however, be reconciled if a relational conception
of governance is deployed.6 To reconcile complexity
and the need for directionality, new capabilities are
required that can facilitate goal-oriented change
without reducing complexity. As discussed in Chapter
3, one of the ways in which this has been approached is
through “collibration”: the “governance of governance”,
4 Rika Preiser et al., “Social-Ecological Systems as Complex Adaptive
Systems: Organizing Principles for Advancing Research Methods and
Approaches,” Ecology and Society 23, no. 4 (2018).
5 Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the
Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato (London: Allen Lane, 2018); Mariana
Mazzucato, Mzukisi Qobo, and Rainer Kattel, “Building State Capacities and
Dynamic Capabilities to Drive Social Change: The Case of South Africa,” UCL
Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Working Paper Series (London,
2021), https://bit.ly/3vF9vtp.
6 Mark Swilling, The Age of Sustainability. Just Transitions in a Complex World
(London: Routledge, 2020).
07 RENATURING
2 TowARDS CoLLIBRAToRy URBAN-NATURE govERNANCE
which relies on establishing a form of meta-level
governance capable of facilitating mission-oriented
partnerships with which to achieve incremental change.
This is particularly important when it comes to dealing
with the complexities of renaturing urbanization and the
challenges inherent to seeking just urban transitions.
Urban governance holds the key to just and sustainable
urban transitions and transformative change. However,
as discussed in Chapter 3, urban governance is by no
means uniform across world regions. In some regions,
development, while in others they have very limited
capacity for intervention. As a result, urban policies do
not always translate into actual programmes and proj-
ects. This leads to a divergence between proclaimed
policy commitments and the actual experiences of
urban dwellers, and particularly those of the urban
-
cially in Latin America) to show that progressive urban
political coalitions can promote just urban transitions.
The underlying causes of this shift in the balance of
power vary; in some cases, new movements and parties
emerge as a result of disruptive crises (e.g. water
shortages, mobility breakdowns, forced removals),
while in others, new urban actors emerge in response
to longer-term trends (e.g. housing shortages, tech-
nological change or rising food prices). The presence
of champions of progressive change (attached to
13
2 TowARDS CoLLIBRAToRy URBAN-NATURE govERNANCE
NGOs, universities, labour federations, new political
parties, social movements or international movements)
often plays a key supportive role in constructing and
mobilizing the narratives of these coalitions. If these
new coalitions achieve electoral victory, they often
initiate ambitious programmes that seek to reorient
unsustainable and unjust urban trajectories.
Where there is a progressive political coalition in power
governing a city, which is committed to sustainabili-
ty-oriented and socially just directionality, there is a
tendency to establish a range of institutional tools and
capabilities for facilitating transitional dynamics without
reducing complexity. When the goal of these arrange-
ments is to facilitate partnering in order to achieve a
this tends to become the focus of urban governance
and to translate into fairer and more effective outcomes.
Nevertheless, through their emphasis on “balancing”’
interests and “partnering”, these curators of urban
collibration may also fall short in their aims to tackle
deep-seated disparities relating to power. They may
tweak certain components and modify the edges of
governance systems to make them more responsive to
environmental challenges, but they often do so through
Source: Samuel Ikua.
A woman selling her own vegetables from a kibanda, a small
makeshift kiosk, Kenya.
14
green transitioning and innovations that may not fully
address key questions relating to social justice.
The discussion thus far, and the case studies that
follow, focus on the internal localized dynamics of city
made possible by global systems of resource extraction7
which are, in turn, premised on the colonization of the
commons. This is something that was largely made
possible by the way in which the Western world colo-
-
ries, through an imperialist and extraction-obsessed
logic that still persists today.8 Various forms of global
governance are emerging to address planetary crises
(e.g. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change – or UNFCCC – processes, High-Level Panel for
a Sustainable Ocean Economy, UNESCO’s Man and the
Biosphere programme reserves, and the Convention
on Biological Diversity, among others). However, in
practice, these platforms continue to be captured
by the biases and preferences of powerful economic
dynamics of global governance. The same collibratory
principles and obstacles to tackling global crises apply
to renaturing governance, as they are all attempts to
reconcile complexity and directionality that meet with
greater or lesser degrees of success.
As global poly-crises (including pandemics that are
often rooted in disturbances of nature) get worse, it is
often assumed that these global governance processes
will be strengthened. However, history tells us that this
is not a linear process. At the centre of the response
to each crisis lies the capacity (or lack thereof) to
facilitate collibratory governance. Nevertheless, in
parallel, processes of post-colonial imperialism are
likely to persist, while levels of violence may escalate
as more fragile and failed states emerge. There are
already two billion people living in failed states. The
connections between these forms of global governance
and national responses to the breakdown of the plane-
tary commons that we all depend on need to be kept in
mind when considering the renaturing of urbanization.
This is crucial in order to reframe the way in which urban
global resources. That said, it is worth looking at the
granular dynamics of urban collibration in cases such
as Cape Town and Melbourne.
7 Heinz Schandl et al., “Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity:
Forty Years of Evidence,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 22, no. 4 (2017):
827–38.
8 Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Empire, Global Coloniality and African
Subjectivity (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013).
GOLD VI REPORT

Cape Town (South Africa)
° “Day Zero”, as it came to be known, in early 2018,
was the day on which the taps in Cape Town were
supposed to run dry. However, after a remarkably
collaborative campaign driven by a partnership
between the City of Cape Town, business and civil
society, water consumption was halved in three
months without the need for a technological solution.
The drought was the result of three consecutive
dry winters (2015-17). The catchment areas that
supplied the city suffered their driest period since
the 1930s. The drought made the city vulnerable
because of its almost exclusive reliance on surface
water. Using a mixture of price-driven and non-price
mechanisms, the city rallied households, businesses
and citizens to respond to the drought. Citizens
responded by replacing lawns and water-sensitive
plants with alternatives that required less water;
they also greatly reduced their personal water use
in water-saving devices, such as low-flow taps,
cisterns, were also adopted by the commercial
and business sectors. However, the harsh reality
was that many residents of informal settlements
have to live with chronic water deficits, suffer
inequities in water infrastructure and must cope
an effective coalition of community groups that did
not always get the support that they needed from
the local authorities, poorer households managed
to adapt to the drought without having to reduce
what little water they used. Due to its systemic
and cross-sectoral impacts, during the lead-up
to Day Zero, partnership-based responses to the
drought crisis had to be strategic and inclusive and
have a major impact. Intermediary actors played a
being the Western Cape Economic Development
Partnership. This publicly funded organization
carefully brokered an agreement between all
three levels of government, which had hitherto
run separate campaigns, with separate messaging.
This organization also facilitated the formation
of a broad coalition of business and civil society
groups which was transformed into an effective,
albeit unstable, partnership. Unsurprisingly, this
systemic shock triggered awareness amongst water
managers that climate-induced droughts had come
to stay and that this would require changing the
way in which the precious resource of water was
managed. Furthermore, although the drought ended,
07 RENATURING
2 TowARDS CoLLIBRAToRy URBAN-NATURE govERNANCE
consumers did not then return to their previous
levels of water consumption. If their response
can be sustained, this combination of a change of
behaviour and technological innovation could well
result in a new system of water governance in Cape
Town in the future.
Melbourne (Australia)
° In 2003, the city of Melbourne decided that it wanted
to be carbon neutral by 2020. It therefore adopted
a strategic document called Zero Net Emissions
by 2020 – A Roadmap to a Climate Neutral City. It
then assembled a city-wide partnership to drive this
strategy which resulted in radical improvements
in energy efficiency, reductions in energy and
water consumption, and also improved waste
management in city operations. Given the prolonged
droughts that Melbourne often experiences, water
consumption was reduced by 40% by 2020. Direct
action included: the gradual introduction of drought
tolerant grasses in city parks and sports grounds;
the use of reclaimed water for irrigation purposes;
and the use of extensive mulching to improve
water retention. In addition, a free showerhead
exchange initiative reduced the amount of water
used per person per year by 13,500 litres and citizens
were encouraged to collect rainwater for garden
irrigation. These water restrictions were introduced
with enforced compliance. Without the help of
partnerships organized through a unit of City of
Melbourne, achieving such city-wide support and
not have been possible.
In short, renaturing urbanization is all about framing
just urban transitions in ways that reconcile
complexity and directionality. The two experiences
cited above show that relational governance is most
suited to respond to situations with increasing levels
of complexity. LRGs and other key actors that can help
drive urban change need a “compass” that will help them
to navigate and adapt to the rhythm, dynamics and
ever-changing patterns of real-world complex adap-
tive systems. Such a compass needs to be created
the appropriate capabilities and networks are located
within each particular city (whether in LRGs, universi-
ties, or NGOs, etc.). However, in general, this usually
calls for a group, and/or network, that can comprehend
the complexities while, at the same time, enabling
interactions that result in commitments to particular
pathways to action.
15
3 BUILDINg JUST TRANSITIoNS BoTh wIThIN AND BEyoND CITIES
3 Building just
transitions
both within and
beyond cities
Seeking just transitions requires addressing the
negative impacts of cities on distant “elsewheres”
that provide resources. The colonization of the global
commons by urban elites effectively created a resource
base for wealth accumulation and inequalities within
towns and cities. These then mushroomed across the
planet, in just over a century.9 A just urban transition
implies addressing persistent inequalities both within
and outside city boundaries because of the way in which
urban systems and property markets consistently repro-
duce social exclusion as urbanization progresses. To
achieve urban and territorial equality, it is necessary
to consider the multiple ways in which networked
from natural systems through urban systems in
spatially unequal ways. From the 1980s onwards, the
traditional model for municipal governance, of publicly
managed networked infrastructures, was replaced by
the neoliberal model that brought into play a new set
of urban elites, including powerful property developers,
operators of privatized infrastructure services, and a
vast range of translocal interests. What is now needed
are new forms of urban governance that can manage
9 Neil Brenner, Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary
Urbanization (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2014).
16
alternative, decentralized and distributed networked
infrastructures, which are potentially more inclusive
and ecologically sustainable. Examples of this would
include popular struggles against privatized water
systems in countries like Tanzania and Bolivia, which
resulted in the reversal of privatized water service
delivery. Another example would be the mushrooming
(and subsequent reversal) of cooperatively owned
renewables in Denmark and Germany, with 50% of
renewables in Germany being owned by cooperatives
or municipalities by 2012.
LRGs are well aware of the changing dynamics in
urbanization. In many places in the Global South, the
challenge is about coping with the rapid expansion
of the urban population. Meanwhile, in some parts of
the Global North (and especially in parts of Europe),
the challenges relate more to population decline and
reduced revenues. For LRGs in the Global South, the
key implication of the World Urbanization Prospects
2018 data was the harsh reality that just under 50% of
the urban fabric that is expected to be required by 2050
still has to be produced.10
additional urban population, of nearly four billion people,
10 UNDESA, “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision” (New York,
2019), https://bit.ly/3L7nEWT.
GOLD VI REPORT

will end up in developing country cities, and particularly
in Asian and African cities. If we then include the more
than one billion people who currently live in informal
settlements, it follows that material infrastructure of
one kind or another will need to be assembled by LRGs
in the Global South for the additional 3.4 billion new
urban dwellers who will exist by 2050. To use a statistic
that perfectly illustrates the point: Chinese cities used
more cement in its urbanization boom between 2011 and
2013 than the USA used in the entire twentieth century.
This raises obvious questions: What will the resource
requirements of future urbanization be if business-as-
usual, socio-technical systems are deployed throughout
the world’s built environment? What are the resource
implications of providing more just and sustainable
socio-technical systems? For LRGs to tackle these
questions, it will mean considering both the quantitative
and qualitative challenges that must be faced along the
pathway towards a more just urban transition.
Several reports are useful to grasp the extent of resource
- exporting and not to the importing countries. If this meth-
inate in the natural commons that have been inherited
from evolution; they are then extracted by industrial and
managed by urban elites. The International Resource
Panel’s Weight of Cities report11 launched in 2018 was the
urban systems, projected forward to 2050. These
resources included biomass (including food, materials,
forest products and fuel), fossil fuels, building materials
(mainly sand and cement) and metals and minerals. The
report revealed that if the global urban population almost
doubles by 2050, and if urban development continues
to be planned and managed on a business-as-usual
basis, the annual resource requirements of the world’s
urban settlements will increase from 40 billion tonnes
in 2010 to 90 billion tonnes by 2050. Furthermore, if
urban settlements, which is currently running at minus
2% per annum, were to continue, urban land use would
increase from 1 million km² to over 2.5 million km² by 2050.
It should be noted that this expansion would be into the
most productive farmland in the world (with the most
negative impacts being in Asia and Africa) and would
thus threaten food supply systems and the overall food
sovereignty of millions of small farmers.12
11 Mark Swilling et al., “The Weight of Cities. Resource Requirements of
Future Urbanization” (Nairobi, 2018), https://bit.ly/39b2NUq.
12 Christopher Bren D’Amour et al., “Future Urban Land Expansion and
Implications for Global Croplands,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 114, no. 34 (2016): 8939–44.
07 RENATURING
3 BUILDINg JUST TRANSITIoNS BoTh wIThIN AND BEyoND CITIES
The Weight of Cities report also explored alternatives.
Overall, if a material consumption target of six tonnes per
capita were to be achieved (to align resource consump-
tion with the Net Zero 2050 target), this would imply
halving total resource consumption in urban settlements
by 2050. Some would argue that this is not enough: it
is equivalent to what was consumed in 2010, but with
an extra 3.5 billion urban consumers. Furthermore,
although it assumes no informal settlements, unequal
resource use would still remain. Nevertheless, even
halving resource consumption in this way would require
a massive reduction in resource consumption for the
developed world in order to make increased resource
consumption possible in the developing world, where
this is required. In low-density, developed economies
(North America, Australia), resource consumption is
25-35 tonnes per capita, while it is 15-18 tonnes per capita
in high-density developed economies (Europe, Japan).
However, this assumes that the resources that are used
to produce the goods imported into rich countries (the
so-called “resource rucksack”) are allocated to the
odological error is corrected, using the “material footprint”
approach, the picture changes quite dramatically.13 As
the map below reveals, the material footprint of nations
is profoundly unequal, with that of North America, Europe
and Australia being 20-50 tonnes per capita, while that
of most of Africa and India is 1-5 tonnes per capita. The
majority of the resources extracted from nature are
sunk into the built environment and consumed via urban
systems. Therefore, the map presented in Figure 7.2,
which shows the national material footprint per capita
(MF/cap, in tonnes per capita or t/cap), effectively
extraction and deployment of natural resources for the
86% of the world’s manufactured goods.14
That said, based on life cycle assessments of district
energy systems, green buildings and mass transit in 84
between 36% and 54% of current use could be achieved
in each of these sectors.15 If this is true for these sectors,
it is assumed that it is more than likely also valid for
13 Thomas O. Wiedmann et al., “The Material Footprint of Nations,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 20 (2013): 6271–76.
14 UNDP, “Human Development Report 1998” (Oxford, 1998),
https://bit.ly/38aJ6eS.
15 Swilling et al., “The Weight of Cities. Resource Requirements of Future
Urbanization.” Life Cycle Assessment is a methodology for calculating
the total quantity of direct and indirect resources that are used in a given
system, which could be anything ranging from an entire city or industrial
sector to an individual factory or household.
17
3 BUILDINg JUST TRANSITIoNS BoTh wIThIN AND BEyoND CITIES

Figure 7.2
Material footprint of nations

MF/CAP (T/CAP)
0.0 - 1.0
1.1 - 2.5
2.6 - 5.0
5.1 - 7.5
7.6 - 10.0
10.1 - 20.0
20.1 - 30.0
30.1 - 50.0
50.1 - 100.0
100.1 - 300.0

Source: Wiedmann et al., “The Material Footprint of Nations.”

others, such as industrial and commercial energy use,
fossil fuel use, water and sanitation systems, solid waste
systems and road infrastructure. These are essential
considerations for LRGs seeking to drive a renaturing
pathway. Nevertheless, although improving resource
between urban systems and nature, it would not reduce
inequalities or change the distribution of the ownership
of these resources.
It is only if interventions to achieve greater resource
efficiency correlate with social justice goals that
deeper transformations become possible. This is
particularly true for interventions that promote much
neighbourhoods. Urban sprawl in certain parts of the city
tends to favour the rich (especially if it means escaping
high property taxes to cross-subsidize the poor), rather
than the urban poor, who get pushed out into peri-urban
areas and into other parts of the city. Densification
can reverse both trends, if pursued according to a
social justice agenda. This may, of course, call for bold
interventions in the property market, but these tend
to be severely constrained in many jurisdictions, with
well-organized urban property-owning classes being
to secure debt extension.
Scientific research and policy debates on urban
emerging body of knowledge offers empirically detailed
case studies that underpin normative conclusions
about how to reduce resource consumption in cities.
Research on urban infrastructure has a much longer

18 GOLD VI REPORT

tradition and draws upon a wide range of disciplines.
In recent years the focus of this research has been on
with few exceptions, the urban infrastructure debate
systems. The renaturing of cities will mean designing,
building, operating and maintaining urban infrastruc-
systems in ways that decouple improvements in well-
being from rising resource use over time. Decoupling
stems from the assumption that a sustainable world can
only be achieved if more renewable, and less non-renew-
able, resources are used (“resource substitutability”) in
the three pillars of mainstream urbanism that evolved
during the course of the twentieth century: natural
resources are unlimited, market prices determine the
allocation of these resources, and inequalities are
unavoidable. As the three pillars that sustain economic
growth as the primary goal, they have also become
synonymous with ‘“development”.
Resource sufficiency involves promoting a more
equitable use of resources. It refers to the need to
reduce the resource consumption of the wealthiest
urban dwellers from between 16-35 tonnes per capita
to 6-10 tonnes per capita, and to increase that of the
poorest urban dwellers from 1-3 tonnes per capita to
5-8 tonnes per capita. Unequal resource use tends to
accessed by the wealthiest sections of urban society.
A more equitable use of resources in more densely
occupied and socially mixed neighbourhoods would
cost less per capita over time and result in greater
social harmony than in divided and unequal cities. As
(due to the “multiplicity of eyes in a space” phenomenon),
much less would have to be spent on personal security
measures.16
as a profoundly relational mode of living: it typically
involves access to neighbourhood-level public spaces,
- water. When well-implemented and operated, this
cient and affordable mass transit, street-based retail
activity rather than malls, 4-6 story buildings, and a
greater number of intersections per hectare to promote
16 Jan Gehl, Cities for People (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010).
07 RENATURING
3 BUILDINg JUST TRANSITIoNS BoTh wIThIN AND BEyoND CITIES
properties within such neighbourhoods is a product
of their relational dynamics and of complex interactions
between social norms, market transactions, collective
awareness and therefore local voices. Many examples
exist of socially mixed environments of this sort in
cities in both developed and developing countries.17
From a resource perspective, this is the kind of living
environment that is compatible with the principles of
The vignettes that follow illustrate the diversity of
have taken place, including the implications for resource
even though there is a lack of an explicit link between
sustainable resource use and social equity outcomes.
° China’s capital city, Beijing, has faced water
shortages for many years due to a combination of
a diminishing supply and an increasing demand. A
combination of successive years of below-average
rainfall, high population growth, and the pollution of
surface and groundwater resulted in the city’s per
capita freshwater availability falling from 1,000 m³
in 1949 to less than 230 m³ in 2007. As the city has
expanded, demand has shifted from agricultural
and industrial uses to residential use, with domestic
water consumption more than doubling in the ten
years up to 2005; it has subsequently continued to
increase at a slightly lower rate. To make matters
worse, policies have reduced the supply options by
have also supported wasteful water consumption
by favouring large-scale engineering projects to
increase the water supply at little or no additional
to address water shortages (in 1987), the local
government introduced regulations that required
all hotels with a constructed area exceeding 20,000
m², and all public buildings exceeding 30,000 m²
(such as schools, universities, train stations
and airports), to install on-site water treatment
facilities in order to be able to recycle and reuse
type of decentralized water treatment system can
be a useful model for other cities. It allows a more
efficient management of water resources, can
17 Maarten Hajer et al., Neighbourhoods for the Future: A Plea for a Social and
Ecological Urbanism (Amsterdam: Valiz Trancity, 2022).
19
3 BUILDINg JUST TRANSITIoNS BoTh wIThIN AND BEyoND CITIES
reduce the pollution of surface and groundwater
systems, and can help overcome many of the
limitations of centralized wastewater treatment
plants. These smaller plants are quicker to plan
and install and are better able to cater for rapidly
changing capacity requirements in fast-growing
treated wastewater on site, for non-potable uses
the demand for potable water and centralized water
treatment facilities can be reduced; this saves
resources and cuts costs.
Durban (South Africa)
° About 450 tonnes of waste arrives daily at the
Mariannhill Landfill Site, located 20 km from
Durban. The project began with an environmental
landfill in South Africa to undergo such a study.
This assessment found a need to restore the local
ecosystem, to minimize the loss of biodiversity, to
connect the site to other nature reserves, and to
support natural migration patterns. The Mariannhill
pollution and to restore the damaged areas. The
key aims of the project were to collect and treat
harmful landfill emissions using natural, robust,
and low-cost methods, and to rescue soil and
indigenous vegetation removed during construction
of the site and to store it in a nursery, on site. Other
objectives were to help mitigate climate change by
reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to provide
income for the city through the sale of electricity
and carbon credits generated from the captured
an ecological approach to containing, treating and
reusing leachate. Methane gas is captured and used
to generate between 450,000 kWh and 650,000 kWh
of electricity per month. Furthermore, indigenous
plant species, which would otherwise have been
and extended in a special purpose nursery. As a result,
was declared a nature reserve in 2002; this was a
There are no comprehensive city-wide examples of
socially inclusive, ecologically designed, urban systems.
City-wide projects like Masdar (United Arab Emirates)
and Songdo (Republic of Korea) are examples of elite
green enclaves and effectively the poster children
for an unjust transition. Examples tend to be found at
20
the neighbourhood level; the Lynedoch EcoVillage, in
Stellenbosch (South Africa), is an insightful initiative
in this regard.18
Stellenbosch (South Africa)
° The Lynedoch EcoVillage in Stellenbosch was
created by a non-profit organization called the
Sustainability Institute and by Stellenbosch
University, in 1999. The explicitly stated goal of the
Lynedoch EcoVillage development was to create
a socially inclusive, ecologically designed, local
economy and community. It aimed to demonstrate,
in practice, that it was not only possible for a racially
and class diverse community to live together in post-
apartheid South Africa, but that they could also do
so in an ecologically sustainable manner. The main
objectives were: (a) to be a socially mixed community
(both in terms of race and class), organized around
a child-centred learning precinct; (b) to strive to
be a working example of a liveable, ecologically
and economically viable community that would
not require external funding to sustain itself over
time. Over the next twenty years, a socially and
ecologically mature village emerged. This included
organic vegetable gardens and landscaped areas
planted with indigenous plants; a primary school
for up to 400 children, drawn mainly from the
families of local farmworkers and surrounding poor
communities; and a preschool for 45 children, with
an upstairs roof space used by the “Changes Youth
Club” (aftercare for school children and teenagers).
It also included a large multi-purpose hall serving
various functions, including use for school activities,
and classrooms for the Sustainability Institute and
Stellenbosch University. In terms of housing units,
it included the conversion of an old country hotel
and an existing house to provide accommodation
for students (although this was later converted into
80 m² and 130 m²) for a mixed income group. The
latter included 15 sites earmarked for purchase at
for a government housing subsidy and which
constituted a break from the usual South African
urban design practice of spatially segregating
government subsidised erven (plots of land) from
commercially priced erven. Commercial spaces
18 “Sustainability Institute,” 2022, https://bit.ly/393Zm1A.
GOLD VI REPORT
 3 BUILDINg JUST TRANSITIoNS BoTh wIThIN AND BEyoND CITIES

developed and an organic land-reform project on
restricted and a limit was set on the number of cars
circulating in the village. This limit was reinforced
by restrictions placed upon designated communal
for children and pedestrians. The urban design
included: reducing water consumption in each
house; treating all waste water (black- and grey-
water streams) on site and reusing the treated
water for toilet flushing; reducing household
energy consumption by including solar-powered
hot water heating and later solar photovoltaic
systems; eliminating the need for solid-waste
removal from the site; increasing housing densities
by shrinking the average size of the erven in a way
that did not discriminate between rich and poor; and
development. The urban infrastructure was also
designed to operate in ways that required residents
to cooperate with each other rather than depend on
professional managers commanding high salaries.
The end result is a highly affordable, ecologically
designed, space located within a wider urban area
in which property values are normally so high that
even middle-class people cannot afford them.
Urban infrastructures have, to date, been mostly
designed on the assumption that there is an unlim-
ited supply of cheap natural resources. Whereas the
large majority of people in developed countries can
access urban infrastructure services, this is not true
for most urban dwellers in African cities or for up to half
of urban dwellers in many other cities in developing
countries. Urban infrastructure in the Global South has
tended to reinforce inequalities by facilitating access
to reliable energy supplies, waste services, water and
sanitation for the minority who can afford to pay for
fundamentally reimagined in all world regions. This is
particularly true of renewable energy, which attracted
over 300 billion USD of investment in 2020: twice what
was invested in new fossil fuel and nuclear power,
combined. Major initiatives to electrify urban systems
are now underway, coupled to connecting these urban
systems to a wide range of embedded and utility-scale
renewable energy sources. Similarly, new solutions in
proliferate. Massive increases in investment in elec-
revolution in building design has been underway for at
least the last two decades. All of these initiatives are
changing the relationship between urban and natural
systems.
The challenge is, of course, how to ensure that these
opportunities for fundamentally rethinking urban
infrastructure can be coupled to a social justice
agenda. Left to its own devices, mainstream investment
will focus on market-led and technology solutions that
will not result in a just transition. Appropriate state
-
ence the directionality of the transition towards more
equitable outcomes. This includes ensuring the capacity
to facilitate shared missions and to build partnerships
for implementation.

fuel-based energy and rising food prices), this translates

into higher prices, which further exacerbate existing
inequalities. Fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure
is becoming increasingly unaffordable, even in the
Global North. New renewable energy infrastructure is

stations operating.19

Unsurprisingly, the design, construction and opera-

tion of a lot of urban infrastructure is currently being

Source: Municipality of Chefchaouen.

Installing solar panels on buildings Communale in Chefchaouen, Morocco.
19 Modesta Tochi Alozie et al., ‘Sustainable Energy Access in Urban Areas’,
GOLD VI Working Paper Series (Barcelona, 2022).

07 RENATURING 21
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
4 Seeking just
transitions
through multisectoral
renaturing
The 2015 Paris Agreement, which was adopted during the
UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (or COP 21) resulted
in a commitment to keep average global temperature
increases to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Subsequent expert reports by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have demonstrated that
extreme climate impacts, which would require net zero
global CO2 emissions by the mid-century. According to
the 2021 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, cities play a
central role in intensifying human-induced warming at
the local level. Future urbanization trends will, therefore,
correlate with more frequent cases of extreme heat
and with the severity of heatwaves getting worse.
Urbanization has also been linked to increases in mean
precipitation and heavy rainfall events, both over and/
of surface runoff. For coastal cities, more frequent
extreme sea events (with rises in sea level and storm
events, are expected to increase the probability of
20
As is well known, historically marginalized
20 IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers,” in Climate Change 2021 The Physical
Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Valérie Masson-
Delmotte and Panmao Zhai (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2021).
22
groups, such as racialized minorities, migrants, work-
ing-class residents, female residents, older people and
children, are the ones who tend to be most exposed to,
and affected by, the impact of such events; they are
also normally the ones with fewest resources to cope
with them.
In response to the climate emergency, and as part of
the 2020 Race to Zero global campaign,21 700 cities
include a pledge: to reach net zero emissions by 2050;
to meet a mid-term target which is considered to
cover a fair share of the 50% global reduction in CO2
by 2030; and also to increase their adaptation and
resilience to the climate threats and their impacts.
With regard to adaptation and resilience, in partic-
ular, urban renaturing and green infrastructure are
being increasingly integrated into urban policy, as
central tools for the management and mitigation of
urban environmental and climate risks.22 Such policies
21 Rodrigo Messias (UCLG Ecological Transition), ‘Cities and Regions Race
to Zero – Local Decarbonization Pathways’, GOLD VI Pathways to Equality
Cases Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
22 Sara Meerow and Joshua P. Newell, “Spatial Planning for Multifunctional
Green Infrastructure: Growing Resilience in Detroit,” Landscape and Urban
Planning 159 (2017): 62–75.
GOLD VI REPORT
 4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg

Source: Samuel Ikua/Mazingira Institute.

Francisca selling locally produced food at the roadside, Kenya.

include stormwater management and the mitigation
23
mudslides and landslides.24 For example,
green belts,25 rain gardens, permeable pavements
and green roofs all enhance urban nature and natural
processes while, at the same time, protecting residents
from the urban heat island effect and/or stormwater
26
Related to this point is the fact that green
investment and lower running costs when compared
to traditional grey infrastructure systems. This is often
seen as a “no-regrets option” or a win-win solution,27 in
the cases of both small-scale and large green projects.
As part of this process, cities and metropolitan areas are
23 Li Liu and Marina Bergen Jensen, “Green Infrastructure for Sustainable
Urban Water Management: Practices of Five Forerunner Cities,” Cities 74,
no. 126–133 (2018).
therefore using the principles of green urbanism to
remake their urban fabric and landscapes. They are
doing this following a vision of global planning and
resilient and healthy city (see Box 7.1). On the pathway
towards decarbonization and resilience, the Cities Race
to Zero campaign considers equality to be a fundamental
principle. As a result, cities joining the campaign are
required to plan at least one “inclusive and equitable
climate action” from a list of suggested actions.
This section on multisectoral renaturing examines urban
plans and initiatives to address the goals of mitigation
and adaptation while, at the same time, achieving those
goals associated with equity and justice. It moves from
broader planning scales and visions to more site and/or

24 Isabelle Anguelovski, Clara Irazábal-Zurita, and James Connolly, “Grabbed

Urban Landscapes: Socio-Spatial Tensions in Green Infrastructure Planning particular attention to the goals of equality and justice.
in Medellín,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43, no. 1
(2019): 133–56.
challenges related to urban green equity and justice.
25 Anguelovski, Irazábal-Zurita, and Connolly.

26 Isabelle Anguelovski, James Connolly, and Anna Livia Brand, “From

Landscapes of Utopia to the Margins of the Green Urban Life,” City 22, no.
3 (2018): 417–36; Teresa Zölch et al., “Using Green Infrastructure for Urban 27 Heleen L.P. Mees et al., “Who Governs Climate Adaptation? Getting Green
Roofs for Stormwater Retention off the Ground,” Journal of Environmental
Scale,” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 20 (2016): 305–16. Planning and Management 56, no. 6 (2013): 802–25.

07 RENATURING 23
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg

Box 7.1

Own source revenues (including pollution taxes and other “green” revenues)

for the city government’s green infrastructure and services. Second, local leaders can use revenue instruments to
regulate and to incentivize residents and businesses to make climate-smart decisions. Although higher motor fuel
and other energy-related taxes would be one of the most promising ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, carbon
taxes at the city level are currently uncommon. One exception can be found at Boulder (USA), which instituted a
“carbon tax” on the use of electricity generated from fossil fuels in 2006. Its residents and commercial and industrial
customers pay a differentiated tax rate per kWh.

LRGs may enact laws, or introduce ordinances, to enforce environmental regulations that are stricter than national
standards, or that encourage higher-density development and reduce transport-related pollution. LRGs can make
green mandates more attractive to local taxpayers by providing local tax credits. Green tax credits are often provided
by central governments, but there are also examples at the local level. For instance, if a property follows green building
guidelines imposed by a subnational government, the tax credit may be deducted from the property tax, in accordance
with the degree of compliance. One example of this is Quezon City’s Green Building Ordinance, in the Philippines. The
city provides a Green Building Credit incentive to taxpayers for the construction or rehabilitation of green buildings.

Climate mitigation and adaptation grants

Local taxpayers and city leaders are less likely to use their own source revenues to fund climate mitigation efforts that

as the City Climate Finance Gap Fund28 or the UN Capital Development Fund’s Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility,29
are innovative mechanisms to integrate climate change adaptation into LRG planning and budgeting systems. Such
initiatives increase awareness of, and responses to, climate change at the local level and also increase the amount

Source: box developed by Paul Smoke and Jamie Boex for GOLD VI

28 World Bank, “City Climate Finance Gap Fund,” Brief, 2021, https://bit.ly/38nVBE5.

29 UNCDF, “Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility,” 2022, https://bit.ly/3KdzgGj.

24 GOLD VI REPORT

4.1 Planning
visions and
models
At the broad strategic planning scale, municipal visions
and scenarios for decarbonization and renaturing
have increasingly developed around the creation of
15/30-minute neighbourhoods (also called “complete
streets”), in which residents are able to satisfy most
of their needs within walking or biking distance.
Many of those visions are linked to a transit-oriented
development plan, urban development plan, or land
use plans and are mainly led by the C40 Cities network,
as part of their climate action planning work. In Paris
(France), Mayor Anne Hidalgo built much of her 2020
re-election campaign around the Ville du quart d’heure
(15-minute City). In Boulder, Colorado (USA), the local
authorities have created “a 15-minute neighbourhood
[which] allows people to […] access their basic needs
(parks, food, etc.) within 15 minutes of walking, biking, or
transit”.30 Such a model is meant to reduce congestion,
break car dependence, and minimize air pollution when
accessing daily resources and amenities. It has also
promoted the principles of equality by encouraging
a diverse mix of housing options that aims to cover
the various needs and socio-economic possibilities of
residents, regardless of their social class, while avoiding
proposed a guide for developing a 15-minute city vision
and interventions for a green and just recovery from
COVID-19;31 this has largely been inspired by Paris, but
also by Bogota’s (Colombia) Barrios Vitales (Vital Neigh-
bourhoods), Portland’s (USA) Complete Neighbourhoods,
Melbourne’s (Australia) 20 Minute Neighbourhoods, and
Shanghai’s and Guangzhou’s (China) 15-Minute Commu-
nity Life Circles.
In fact, the deployment of the 15-30-minute neigh-
bourhood model has accelerated during the COVID-19
pandemic. During the crisis, urban residents and LRGs
have (re)discovered people’s dependence on neigh-
bourhood stores, public spaces, parks, health centres,
30 Growing Up Boulder, “15-Minute Neighborhoods” (Boulder, 2015),
https://bit.ly/398GcYt.
31 C40 Cities, “Green & Just Recovery Agenda,” What we do, 2022,
https://bit.ly/3vDDn9C.
07 RENATURING
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
and other amenities, and started to value a closer, less
stressful, and more connected version of urban life.32
In response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19
strategic urbanism, and its measures, in order to make
neighbourhoods more liveable and accessible, and they
Lagos
(Nigeria), for example, the municipality initially closed
schools to transform them into markets and ensure
that residents could buy food and medicine without
traveling far from their homes. This also prevented
central markets from becoming excessively crowded.
Lisbon Mexico City (Mexico) have helped
essential workers to reach their workplaces by shared,
public and private, bicycle-rental systems, which are
often free or operate at subsidized rates. Overall, the
15-30-minute neighbourhood model is meant to make
neighbourhoods more resilient to climate impacts
and other health and climate crises.33 This model
also makes both cities and individuals more resistant
to shocks by increasing their sense of belonging and
mutual support, and allowing more time to be spent
with families and friends. It has also led to people (re)
discovering local recreational, civic and environmental
activities: as a result, when accessible, safe and
inclusive, cities can help to alleviate the impact of the
pandemic and other crises on people’s mental health,
through anxiety, depression and trauma.34
Paris (France)
° Mayor Hidalgo’s vision is anchored around four
principles – proximity, diversity, density, and ubiquity.
It entails “a city of proximities,” where liveability must
be established not only between structures but also
between people. The intention is to allow residents
to be able to access amenities within 15 minutes,
by foot and bicycle. According to this vision, each
neighbourhood should be able to serve six social
functions: living, working, supplying, caring, learning
and enjoying. To put this into practice, the city’s
agenda is to build bicycle lanes on every street and
bridge in the city. This will be done by converting 70%
of the streetcar parking space to other more social
32 Jordi Honey-Rosés et al., “The Impact of COVID-19 on Public Space:
An Early Review of the Emerging Questions – Design, Perceptions and
Inequities,” Cities & Health, 2020, https://bit.ly/3EHfHVM.
33 Peter Yeung, “How ‘15-Minute Cities’ Will Change the Way We Socialise,”
BBC News, 2021, https://bbc.in/3rRgnmq.
34 Mark Shevlin et al., “Anxiety, Depression, Traumatic Stress and COVID-
19-Related Anxiety in the UK General Population during the COVID-19
Pandemic,” BJPsych Open 6, no. 6 (2020): 125.
25
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
hubs will be made accessible in neighbourhoods that
currently lack them. This will expand the possibilities
for how infrastructure and buildings can be used
outside business areas, thereby also encouraging
local neighbourhood businesses and shops. This
initiative entails creating small parks in school
playgrounds which will be open to residents outside
school hours, in order to increase the provision
of public green spaces.35 Green is thus not only
related to mobility and public amenities, but also
to more accessible workplaces, cultural activities,
and social connections. Overall, the strategy is
meant to improve quality of life, to strengthen the
social fabric, and to improve how people coexist.
Some of the most emblematic interventions to
date have included the restriction of the Quais de
Seine riversides to cyclists and pedestrians, the
transformation of 40 school playgrounds into green
“oasis yards”, and the delivery of 50 km of newly built
1 billion EUR per year for the maintenance and
Barcelona (Spain)
° In the municipal Superilles (Superblocks) initiative,
networks of nine urban blocks (containing 400 m2)
are helping to reorganize the transit infrastructure
of the city, while – at the same time – freeing space
for new green and public spaces. Eight superblocks
are also being developed following a vision of
Superilles de les cures (Superblocks of Care),37 with
the aim of bringing residents closer to important
care resources, including day care centres, schools,
and centres and caretakers for older residents.
From a health standpoint, a 2021 study by the
Public Health Agency of Barcelona reported that
superblocks could contribute to increased well-
being, a quieter environment, less noise, better
sleep quality, reduced pollution, increased social
interaction, and improved active mobility.38 It is
estimated that the Superblock model should be able
to prevent almost 700 deaths per year by reducing
environment (e.g. air, noise and heat pollution), while
35 Feargus O’Sullivan, “Paris Mayor: It’s Time for a ’15-Minute City,” Bloomberg,
2020, https://bloom.bg/3KeHz4S.
36 Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona, “Superblocks,” 2020,
https://bit.ly/38q4RHS.
37 Barcelona City Council, “Care Superblocks Recognised for Their
Comprehensive Assistance,” Info Barcelona, 2020, https://bit.ly/3vKdgO4.
38 Barcelona Public Health Agency, “Superilles,” Salut als carrers, 2021,
https://bit.ly/3MuGes0.
26
increasing access to recreational amenities and
green spaces and improving physical activity.39
In the Sant Antoni superblock, for example, NO2
emissions and PM10 have decreased by 25% and 10%,
respectively. In addition, participants in the study
reported that they can now rest and sleep better
than before due to lower noise levels and that their
socialization has increased. In the most recently
built superblock, in the Horta neighbourhood, 60%
of female residents and 66% of male residents
report increased walking comfort. However, some
participants, and especially those with children,
also noted that there was a false sense of security
due to the continued proximity of cars. Lastly, a
growing number of citizen’s groups and researchers
have reported increased gentrification around
the superblocks, and especially those in the Sant
Antoni and Poblenou neighbourhoods, with large
new real estate housing and hotel developments
around the Poblenou superblock, in particular.40
the goals of environmental and social equality within
this new urban scheme.
Despite their numerous benefits, criticism and
36
concern are indeed growing about the risk of creating
two-speed, 15-minute, cities if the needs of work-
ing-class districts are not prioritized. To date, most
funding is going to the city-centre districts, which
tend to receive the most funding for new amenities,
such as: pedestrianization, bicycle lanes, health care
centres, and green spaces. In the previously cited
case of Barcelona, superblocks have been deployed
throughout the city, giving attention to providing
public space, neighbourhood improvement, economic
regeneration, sustainable mobility and public housing.41
of funding for superblocks has gone to centrally located
projects in neighbourhoods like Poblenou and Sant
Antoni. Under-investment in working-class districts
has only increased urban inequalities and territorial
stigmatization. Such models are also much easier to
implement in high-density environments with mixed
uses, mass transit systems and social diversity. In much
more sprawling, segregated, and unequal cities, like
many of those in North and South America, including
39 Natalie Mueller et al., “Changing the Urban Design of Cities for Health:
The Superblock Model,” Environment International 134 (2020): 105132.
40 Christos Zografos et al., “The Everyday Politics of Urban Transformational
Adaptation: Struggles for Authority and the Barcelona Superblock Project,”
Cities 99 (2020): 102613.
41 Barcelona City Council, “Barcelona Superblock,” 2022,
https://bit.ly/3vEgD9f.
GOLD VI REPORT

Lima (Peru), Mexico City (Mexico), and Houston and
Miami (USA), the challenges will be far greater.
Chengdu (China)
°
City Masterplan 42
Great
80,000 people. According to the polycentric urban
development approach adopted by the planning
team, it is preferable to create smaller satellite
cities around the periphery. There, all amenities
and services are meant to be within a 15-minute
walk from new pedestrianized centres or by mass
transit rides from a central hub to the current urban
centres. Li Chuncheng, the former Mayor and a top
as a “World Modern Garden City” in the early 2000s:
it was referred to as the gongyuan chengshi (park
city). According to this new urban model, 15% of land
is dedicated to green space, 60% to construction,
and 25% to roads and walkways. Some compare
which emerged in the 1890s to counteract urban
crowding and pollution.43 The Great City model is
meant to consume 48% less energy and 58% less
water than in a comparable city. The green buffer
zone surrounding the city integrates pedestrian and
bicycle pathways that also weave in and out and
bring residents back to the city centre. However,
many residents express their regret of being
displaced by both new urban green amenities and
the housing constructions around them. In 2019,
in Fujia village, in the southern part of Chengdu,
part of the district was earmarked for demolition to
create space for a new greenway. Some residents
reported their eviction and the destruction of
informal gardens to be replaced by sports grounds,
skyscrapers, and large parks.44
often means finding a complex balance between
access to new formal green spaces and support
for informal green amenities. It also implies striking
a balance between protecting leisure, recreation,
informal and active sports facilities and avoiding what
some have called an urbanism of “good behaviour” and
“sports performance”.45
42 Leonardo Márquez, “‘Great City’: A primeira cidade para pedestres do
mundo estaria na China,” ArchDaily, 2012, https://bit.ly/3OWZdxC.
43 Oliver Wainwright, “The Garden City Movement: From Ebenezer to
The Guardian, 2014, https://bit.ly/3rRjjiW.
44 Lily Kuo, “Inside Chengdu: Can China’s Megacity Version of the Garden
City Work?,” The Guardian, 2019, https://bit.ly/38n7hXm.
07 RENATURING
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
4.2 green space,
blue space
and landscape
ecology
Green infrastructure has become a focus for the atten-
are increasingly recognizing the value of urban green
(and blue) spaces. LRGs and planners are currently
incorporating the principles of landscape ecology
into environmental protection, climate mitigation and
public health, place-making and social cohesion. As a
result, many have turned to renaturing and green infra-
urban challenges related to post-industrial redevel-
opment, neighbourhood and downtown revitalization,
public health, environmental sustainability, and resil-
ience to climate change. Environmental amenities now
include parks, gardens, greenways, ecological corridors,
green resilient shorelines, community gardens and
farms. These green amenities tend to be deployed either
on vacant, post-industrialized, and demilitarized land or
in denser, historic urban centres. Some cities, including
Nantes (France) and Buenos Aires (Argentina), have
adopted committed targets for increasing universal
green access. In Buenos Aires, the city has pledged to
increase the coverage of access to green areas for all
its residents by 2025. In Nantes, both the municipality
and the metropolitan area (Nantes Métropole) are
actively committed to strengthening their “green and
blue identity” and to develop greater social cohesion
around urban nature.46 After three decades of green
space development, from the early 2020s onwards,
all the residents of Nantes will live within 300 m of a
green area, with the city offering 57 m2 of green space
per capita and a total of 100 municipal parks. In Nantes,
an equality approach guarantees that no district will
be left behind and another equity-driven approach has
led to the investments in green spaces in marginalized
districts, including in the Dervallières neighbourhood.
45 Guillaume Faburel, Les métropoles barbares : démondialiser la ville,
désurbaniser la terre (Paris: Le Passager Clandestin, 2019).
46 Nantes Métropole et Ville, “Espaces verts et environnement,” 2022,
https://bit.ly/3MkaoOK.
27
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
Iloilo (Philippines)47
° The Iloilo Local Climate Change Action Plan and
the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan
include strategies for the rehabilitation of the
Iloilo River, the protection of mangrove swamps,
and the incorporation of rainwater harvesting
systems.48 The main goal is to address the risk
Iloilo River Esplanade Development Project, which
began in 2012 and sought to rehabilitate the 8.1
km-long river and to thereby avoid developing
roadways for motor vehicles. While developing
the project, the municipality heard civic calls for
public spaces in the area and incorporated green
walkways, landscaping, recreation spaces and
bicycle lanes. The implementation of the project
was conditioned by a zoning ordinance relating to
the network of green and open spaces, yet faced
several challenges associated with the pollution of
the river and the eviction of informal settlements.
These were addressed through clean up campaigns
and the resettlement of 1,000 residents to safe
housing locations. This intervention is not without
challenges, as renaturing has also triggered
displacement and dispossession processes. The
city now plans to resettle informal settlers, possibly
through detailed master plans implemented by either
the city itself or private developers, although this
poses new risks of possible exclusion. Resettlement
areas should also provide employment or business
opportunities for resettled families. Most recently,
the 2021-2029 Iloilo City Comprehensive Land Use
Plan and the Zoning Plan have included density
bonuses as an incentive for projects incorporating
climate change action, disaster risk reduction, and
management technology and systems. In a city that
has become a gateway tourism destination, the
needs and rights of socially marginalized residents,
and those of informal settlements, must take
precedence over those of developers and visitors.
The creation of new environmental amenities and
green infrastructure has also been accompanied by
broader neighbourhood redevelopment initiatives. The
47 Carrión, Valeria (UCLG Learning). “Building Resilience with Nature:
Restoring ecosystems and communities through public policies”. GOLD VI
Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing (2022). United Cities
and Local Governments.
https://bit.ly/3vzXFRe.
28
focus of these initiatives is on providing low-carbon
infrastructure as part of a broader effort to limit and
discourage the use of private cars and in favour of
active and sustainable mobility as well as improving
residents’ health. Green space and improved mobility
infrastructure are meant to address climate mitigation
and adaptation goals while responding to urban health
imperatives for urban residents. These imperatives
include issues that range from reducing air pollution
to combating obesity and promoting physical activity.
This “Healthy City” approach49 is built around providing
adequate and affordable housing, strong public trans-
portation, quality health care, and safe spaces in which
to exercise and play, as proposed by the World Health
Organization back in 1987.
Portoviejo (Ecuador)50
° Since its inauguration in 2018, after the devastating
2016 earthquake, the 10.7 ha Las Vegas Park51
illustrates the concept of “building back better” at
an urban scale. It has achieved this by addressing
deficits in green areas as well as cultural and
economic activities. Part of its budget has come
from central government funds. These have been
used to reconstruct the city and help its economic
revitalization by creating a large multipurpose park
in the city centre. This redevelopment is part of an
interconnected system of natural parks and reserves
that form part of the Corredor del Rio Master Plan.
The design of the park has incorporated several
ecosystem-based adaptation solutions. These
include the recovery and repurposing of riverbanks
of an abandoned meander as a wetland with a
stormwater retention tank where numerous species
of native and tropical fauna have rapidly settled. As a
result of this rehabilitation project, many species of
insects, amphibians, reptiles and birds have settled
in the wetland area, which now has a retention basin
addition, safe and inclusive public spaces have
been developed throughout the park, revitalizing
cultural, recreational, and economic activities. The
park redevelopment also includes cycle paths and
activities, such as the Ciclopaseo Familiar (Family
49 Helen Cole et al., “Can Healthy Cities Be Made Really Healthy?,” The
Lancet Public Health 2, no. 9 (2017): 394–95.
50 Valeria Carrión, ‘Building Resilience with Nature: Restoring Ecosystems
and Communities through Public Policies’, GOLD VI Pathways to Equality
Cases Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
51 Gustavo González, “Parque Las Vegas,” Archivo BAQ, 2018,
https://bit.ly/39h8T5J.
GOLD VI REPORT
 4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg

Cycling) activity, which are family routes that run
through the park and over the bridges of Porto
Viejo. Overall, the project has created a high-quality,
welcoming, accessible, public green space that
addresses various health and environmental needs
while offering new meeting and cultural spaces for
local residents.
Catalonia (Spain)
° Catalonia’s 2017 Climate Law set a carbon neutrality
target for 2050 which includes interim targets of a
40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030
and 65% by 2040, relative to a 2005 baseline. The
law has resulted in the creation of a group of experts
that has defined five-year carbon budgets and
established a tax on CO2 emissions from vehicles
which feeds into a climate protection fund. Tax
rates were initially set at around 10 EUR per tonne
of CO2 emitted, with this rate set to automatically
increase every two years, up to around 30 EUR per
tonne by 2025. In addition, the Catalan government
also established “low emission zones”, early in 2020,
which limited the circulation of high-emission and
older vehicles within Barcelona’s metropolitan area.
In cities of the Global South, and also some in the Global
North, environmental amenities play a particularly
important role in food security and food sovereignty
for structurally discriminated residents through
urban agriculture projects. In informal settlements,
in particular, when urban agriculture is prohibited, as
it was in Kenya prior to the constitutional reform of
2010, restrictive laws tend to contribute to increased
costs, excessive market dependency, waste, and envi-
ronmental degradation. Legal restrictions also hamper
the development of circular economies, biodiversity,
the optimum use of human and natural resources,
Nairobi City County passed a law supporting urban agri-
the following year. In this way, the LRG committed itself
to developing inclusive and sustainable food systems
that provide healthy and affordable food for everyone.

that enter restricted zones, which cover part of

the built-up areas of a number of Catalan cities.
These areas include low-income suburbs, whose
residents are likely to be particularly hit by the
measure, especially if they depend on motorized
private or commercial vehicles for their jobs. On
the other hand, a high-income district of Barcelona

has created concerns about social justice and

how measures differentially affect car owners and
especially small businesses and industries. A total
of 50,000 polluting vehicles are now prohibited
from entering the low emission zones. 52 The
revenue obtained from the climate change tax is
subsequently assigned to one fund for promoting
natural heritage and another for the protection of
the environment. These resources are expected
to be used for: climate mitigation and adaptation
policies; accelerating renewable energy projects;
and encouraging the self-consumption of electricity,

water saving, and improved production processes.

Source: Seattle Parks and Recreation, Flickr.

Urban garden, Seattle, USA.
52 Government of Catalonia, “Barcelona Low Emission Zone,” News, 2022,
https://bit.ly/3xNH3rW.

07 RENATURING 29
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
Nairobi (Kenya)53
° Almost half of the trade in the city’s informal sector
involves food. Farmers, processors and traders sell
food that is either locally produced or brought in
from the outlying areas, with an estimated 250,000
households producing food within the city limits.
This system of daily production, distribution
and consumption plays a vital role in supplying
healthy fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy products and
legislation adopted in 2015, relating to the promotion
of urban agriculture,54 provided a framework for
public participation in the management, protection
and conservation of the environment through the
recycling of organic waste.55 The County government
has also established partnerships to set up facilities
that add value to various waste streams, especially
in areas with vulnerable individuals. The Umoja
estate is one area where the County has provided
land for the local community to turn organic waste
into clean biogas energy; this has benefitted
around 5,000 local households and restaurants.56
In a related innovation, Nairobi City Council has
conducted a collaborative review of supply chains
adopting a gender-based perspective. This has
been particularly aimed at engaging children and
young people of all genders in farming, as well as at
providing women with training in negotiating skills.
Some municipal revitalization and renaturing initiatives
combine greening, food security and housing rights
through community land trusts (CLTs), a rights-based
approach examined in Section 5.2.
53 Habitat International Coalition, ‘Reviving Urban Agriculture’, GOLD VI
Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
54 Nairobi City County, “The Nairobi City County Urban Agriculture
Promotion and Regulation Act” (2015), https://bit.ly/3LjBfdC.
55 Nairobi City County, “The Nairobi City County Solid Waste Management
Act” (2015), https://bit.ly/3KeR0kw.
56 C40 Cities, “Umoja Estate: Nairobi Turns Organic Waste Into Clean
Energy Biogas,” Case Studies, 2019, https://bit.ly/3kcuyhq.
30
4.3 greening
buildings
At the microscale of buildings, cities are currently
working to reduce emissions and to increase energy
waves. Many of the leading cities are members of the
C40 Cities and ICLEI networks, with some of these
cities approaching the challenge from the perspective
of equality.
Boston (USA)
° Boston’s buildings account for approximately 70% of
the city’s carbon emissions; they are therefore a key
target for policies seeking to reduce emissions. City-
owned buildings account for nearly 75% of carbon
emissions from local municipal operations. As a
result, in 2019, the Department of Neighbourhood
Development established a set of zero-emission
actions to be taken, such as replacing windows,
installing air-tight sealing, insulating roofs,
upgrading mechanical and lighting systems, and
considering the carbon emissions resulting from
the production of different construction materials.
Following the adoption of the plan, the Mayor of
Boston also issued an executive order requiring
any new public buildings to follow the city’s zero
emissions standards. The municipal order was
also followed by new zoning rules that are meant
to promote complementary strategies to help
on-site renewable energy generation, and clean
energy procurement. 57 In March 2021, the city
announced that it would earmark 34 million USD to
support 14 affordable-housing projects, including
608 new housing units and the conservation of an
additional 233 units of income-restricted housing
stock. Combining home ownership and accessible
included a requirement to follow zero-emissions
building standards. Projects are also required to
57 Sarah Shemkus, “Boston Zoning Change Would Require Net-Zero
Emissions from New Buildings,” Energy News Network, 2021,
https://bit.ly/3MupBg9.
GOLD VI REPORT
 4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg

set aside a number of housing units for homeless

individuals and families, senior citizens, and people
recovering from substance use. The funding for the
affordable housing projects will come from both
federal and municipal sources, as well as from
resources derived from the city’s linkage fee. The
latter extracts funding from newly-built commercial
projects and from the Community Preservation
Action: a 1% increase in the property tax that was
approved by voters in 2016.

Chefchaouen (Morocco)58

° Chefchaouen, and particularly its old medina, has

a high urban density which is responsible for a
particularly marked heat island effect; this makes
residents more vulnerable to heat stress caused
by climate change. Since 2013, the Municipality of
Chefchaouen has been committed to systematically
and transversally integrating energy management
into its territorial planning and to heating municipal
buildings using solar energy. Chefchaouen is also
Source: MotleyVids.
Urban farming in Thailand: the Small is Beautiful project.
that its new constructions comply with the new
Thermal Regulation for Construction in Morocco. The
city has also applied the principles of bioclimatic
architecture to buildings subject to renovation
(such as the Mediterranean Diet Museum) and has
trained local architects in the use of these principles. greening can bring to an urban landscape, it is also
Since 2018, throughout the country, a total of 1,500 important to recognize that not all local governments
architects have received training in compliance give priority to (or manage to prioritize) equality
with the new thermal regulations and requirements. in urban renaturing. In many cases, greening cities
does not form part of a socially, or politically, balanced
the creation of an inventory of greenhouse gas sustainability project. It is often embedded in historic,
(GHG) emissions, electric mobility, building energy or new, socio-spatial inequalities that are underpinned,
efficiency, eco-driving, waste management, or created, by continuing urban growth, land specula-
installations for solar energy production, and tion, and social segregation.

multistakeholder approach and its unique system of

cooperation between state services, development
agencies, associations and the private sector is
also an important policy lever. This has opened up
opportunities for different actors to contribute to,
and engage in, existing programmes and projects.
In addition to being aimed at improving access to
It is challenging to address such situations due to the
legacy of past planning decisions that often reinforce
inequalities and due to commitments that are not
necessarily translated into new equality-centred
renaturing. Historically speaking, working-class
neighbourhoods and informal settlements have

the city’s energy policy is also geared towards
creating opportunities for young people, increasing
their employability, and promoting the installation
of solar energy infrastructure.
58 Hajar Khamlichi and Karim Elgendy, ‘Energy Transition of Chefchaouen
City’, GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing
(Barcelona, 2022).
access to green space, healthy food, and other natural
amenities, and many marginalized communities suffer
. Numerous
-
ties, based on race, class and gender, in park acreage/
surface, park quality, and formal park maintenance
and safety, in cities in the USA, France, Germany, and

07 RENATURING 31
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
Australia.59 Place-based race/ethnicity and poverty
have been shown to be important correlates of poor
spatial access to parks and other greenspaces.60 For
example, in Baltimore (USA), historically black, central-
ly-located neighbourhoods are the ones with the highest
prevalence of smaller, more crowded, poorly funded and
undermaintained parks.61 In contrast, in white neigh-
from more, and larger, parks, and a higher share of tree
planting.62 Such green inequalities stem from a deep
legacy of environmental racism and racial segregation,
with historic environmental neglect for minority neigh-
bourhoods and greater investment, funding, and overall
attention being destined to predominantly white areas.63
Secondly, while some neighbourhoods, including work-
ing-class ones, have recently become greener, others
have been increasingly excluded through processes
- either prioritization or the continued participation
tion” and their residents have been displaced and/
64
59 Christopher G. Boone et al., “Parks and People: An Environmental Justice
Inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland,” Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 99, no. 4 (2009): 767–87; Alessandro Rigolon, “A Complex
Landscape of Inequity in Access to Urban Parks: A Literature Review,”
Landscape and Urban Planning 153 (2016): 160–69; Jennifer R. Wolch, Jason
Byrne, and Joshua P. Newell, “Urban Green Space, Public Health, and
Environmental Justice: The Challenge of Making Cities ‘Just Green Enough,’”
Landscape and Urban Planning 125 (2014): 234–44; Charlotte Liotta et al.,
“Planning for Environmental Justice - Reducing Well-Being Inequalities
through Urban Greening,” Environmental Science & Policy 112 (2020): 47–60;
Henry Wüstemann, Dennis Kalisch, and Jens Kolbe, “Access to Urban Green
Space and Environmental Inequalities in Germany,” Landscape and Urban
Planning 164 (2017): 124–31; Suzanne Mavoa et al., “Area-Level Disparities
of Public Open Space: A Geographic Information Systems Analysis in
Metropolitan Melbourne,” Urban Policy and Research 33, no. 3 (2015): 306–23.
60 Christopher G. Boone et al., “Landscape, Vegetation Characteristics, and
Group Identity in an Urban and Suburban Watershed: Why the 60s Matter,”
Urban Ecosystems 13 (2010): 255–271; Alessandro Rigolon, Matthew Browning,
and Viniece Jennings, “Inequities in the Quality of Urban Park Systems:
An Environmental Justice Investigation of Cities in the United States,”
Landscape and Urban Planning 178 (2018): 156–69; Isabelle Anguelovski
and James Connolly, “Three Histories of Greening and Whiteness in
American Cities,” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9 (2021): 621783; Amalia
Calderón-Argelich et al., “Tracing and Building up Environmental Justice
Considerations in the Urban Ecosystem Service Literature: A Systematic
Review,” Landscape and Urban Planning 214 (2021): 104130; Francesc Baró et
al., “Under One Canopy? Assessing the Distributional Environmental Justice
Environmental Science
& Policy 102 (2019): 54–64; Kirsten Schwarz et al., “Trees Grow on Money:
Urban Tree Canopy Cover and Environmental Justice,” PLoS ONE 10, no. 4
(2015): e0122051.
61 Boone et al., “Parks and People: An Environmental Justice Inquiry in
Baltimore, Maryland.”
62 Boone et al., “Landscape, Vegetation Characteristics, and Group Identity
in an Urban and Suburban Watershed: Why the 60s Matter.”
63 Isabelle Anguelovski et al., “New Scholarly Pathways on Green
Going?,” Progress in Human Geography 43, no. 6 (2019): 1064–1086.
32
or exposed to “browner” or more climate-insecure
neighbourhoods. Renaturing may contribute to the
displacement of working-class and racialized residents
the loss of traditional socio-cultural practices.65 Such
displacements can happen despite the best environ-
mental planning intentions and, in many cases, in
processes in which green neighbourhood rebranding
and green revitalization have been planned despite
awareness of the risk of causing displacement. A large
study conducted in 28 medium-sized cities (with from
500,000 to 1.5 million residents), in the EU, Canada
and the USA, found that in 17 of them, earlier green
space projects played a relevant role in explaining
66
Displacement is particularly prevalent in greening
and development projects undertaken without
of existing local communities. In such cases, commu-
nities may be “greened”, but perhaps only for aesthetic
or elite-driven economic development purposes, as
opposed to as the result of efforts to directly address
acute crises in the neighbourhood. Furthermore, resi-
dents living in neighbourhoods that have undergone
feel at home in, their neighbourhood; as a result, they
may become socially displaced from their community
or remain in place, but without a strong sense of
belonging.67 Many green infrastructure approaches
have therefore been criticized for potentially producing
unequal ecological areas and divisive green landscapes
to the detriment of alternative forms of urban greening.
Some of this green infrastructure is even referred
to as “GreenLULU”, or Green Locally Unwanted Land
Use, in planning literature.68 In Copenhagen (Denmark),
for example, new green spaces created in the 1990s
the 2010s. These patterns could be explained by
investment-oriented green infrastructure and urban
liveability initiatives attracting “talented” people,
Justice in the City,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33,
no. 3 (2009): 621–39.
What Does the Urban ‘Green Turn’ Mean and Where Is It Going?”
Evidence from 28 Global North Cities,” n.d. (forthcoming).
67 Isabelle Anguelovski et al., “Expanding the Boundaries of Justice in
Urban Greening Scholarship: Toward an Emancipatory, Antisubordination,
Intersectional, and Relational Approach,” Annals of the American Association
of Geographers 110, no. 6 (2020): 1743–69.
68 Isabelle Anguelovski, “From Toxic Sites to Parks as (Green) LULUs? New
Environmental Justice,” Journal of Planning Literature 31, no. 1 (2016): 23–36.
GOLD VI REPORT

especially to recently redeveloped areas such as the
district of Norrebro. At the same time, throughout the
city, social protection and housing affordability policies
dismantled. As a result, Copenhagen changed from
being the greenest and reputedly the most liveable
city in the world69 – as well as, historically speaking,
being a socially inclusive city and one with affordable
housing – to being considered a green city built for elites
and visitors.70 Some civic groups are now organizing
moves to resist displacement; these include the Almen
Modstand (Common Resistance), which is a coalition of
- middle- and upper-class visitors and tourists.
Such trends are not limited to the Global North. In Rio
de Janeiro (Brazil), the upgrading of favelas has also
been associated with racialized discrimination. This has
led to the displacement of people from public spaces
into new green public spaces, as in the case of the
Babylonia favela, which has been closely surveilled,
controlled and even criminalized. For favela residents,
upgrading has been experienced as a process of secu-
ritization and restriction, which has involved a clean-up
of the local environment, but accompanied by property
enclosure, police violence, and new exclusionary forms
of investment.71
In cities such as Medellin (Colombia), green space
projects have also been found to contribute to new
72
Metro Medellin (Colombia)
° In Medellin, up to 50% of the city’s residents live
in “high-risk” zones, including self-built Comuna
communities in the hills around the city. These are
mostly poor, rural-to-urban migrants, internally
displaced indigenous groups, and others who have
has been building what should eventually become
a 72 km 2 Cinturón verde (Greenbelt) to control
metropolitan growth and improve the climate
69 John Wilmott, “Have You Been to the World’s Greenest City?,” The
Telegraph, 2020, https://bit.ly/3rPYqEC.
70 Isabelle Anguelovski and James Connolly, The Green City and Social
Injustice: 21 Tales from North America and Europe (London: Routledge, 2022).
71 Thaisa Comelli, Isabelle Anguelovski, and Eric Chu, “Socio-Spatial
Janeiro,” City 22, no. 5–6 (2018): 633–56.
72 Anguelovski, Irazábal-Zurita, and Connolly, “Grabbed Urban Landscapes:
Socio-Spatial Tensions in Green Infrastructure Planning in Medellín.”
07 RENATURING
4 SEEKINg JUST TRANSITIoNS ThRoUgh MULTISECToRAL RENATURINg
resilience of the entire metropolitan area. Original
ideas have also included greater urban and rural
integration, the conservation of the local ecology,
and comprehensive territorial planning. However,
recent research has revealed that the project is
largely beautifying working-class neighbourhoods
while, at the same time, turning their land into green
landscapes of privilege and pleasure. Within this
process, the local government is reconfiguring
community land and turning it into new, aesthetically
“controlled” forms of nature and projecting the image
of a new and vibrant green Medellin, but largely for
managing both the transition between urban and
rural areas and establishing connections with other
parts of the country. Clear physical boundaries, such
as those created by the Cinturón Verde, do not fully
address this challenge. The rural-urban border is
not homogeneous, and different conditions need to
be considered and integrated into a comprehensive
management plan for the whole territory. This must
cover livelihoods and connectivity plans that include
rural neighbourhoods that lie outside its municipal
gardens which are farmed by city residents. These
still rely on land for their livelihoods, but many of
them have now been eradicated in favour of more
formal urban agriculture projects. At times, the
city’s greenbelt also encroaches on traditional land
uses, like livestock grazing, which undermines many
people’s identity and their relationship with their
territory. Finally, although much of the greenbelt is
high-end housing complexes are currently being
built within the greenbelt zone. This reveals the
inequitable enforcement of land use regulations,
which almost inevitably favours the interests of
luxury developers and high-income residents.
33
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
5 Bringing
justice to urban
renaturing
A socially and environmentally “just” city can be
defined as one in which all human residents and
non-human species have an equal opportunity to
thrive. This implies that health outcomes and environ-
class, gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation,
religion and physical and mental abilities, while also
considering the intersection of different discrimi-
nations based on these identities and experiences.
However, while the need to articulate justice in the
pursuit of greater urban environmental sustainability
and resilience has been long acknowledged,73 consider-
ation of the need for equality for all occupants of cities,
whether human or non-human, are often neglected by
efforts to ensure more sustainable urban and territorial
development.74 Working towards this aim requires
confronting the historical trajectories that have
produced and continue to produce injustices. Such
73 See for instance: David Schlosberg, “Reconceiving Environmental
Justice: Global Movements And Political Theories,” Environmental Politics
13, no. 3 (2004): 517–40; Julian Agyeman, Sustainable Communities and the
Challenge of Environmental Justice (New York: New York University Press,
2005); Susan S. Fainstein, The Just City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
2010); Nik Heynen, “Urban Political Ecology I: The Urban Century,” Progress
in Human Geography 34, no. 4 (2014): 598–604.
74 For example, when confronted with competing priorities and interests,
local authorities often struggle to align low carbon aspirations and the
quest for equitable housing and ensuring that all households have equitable
access to low carbon services through accountable mechanisms of
34
trajectories include: a historical disregard for nature in
urban life; and the misrecognition of the “informal” city
and of the everyday city-making practices of ordinary
people.75 Here, there is a need to recognize the impor-
tance of territorial planning at the metropolitan and
regional levels for the just protection and restoration
of biodiversity, and especially in relation to such issues
as land use planning, protected areas and ecosystem
services. Likewise, it is of paramount importance to
establish reciprocally just urban, peri-urban and rural
linkages in order to renature urbanization (see Box
7.2). Some regional and provincial governments are
already leading the way in the promotion and protection
of biodiversity; these include: Catalonia (Spain), Quebec
(Canada), Gangwon (China), and Sao Paulo (Brazil).76
production and distribution. Ralph Horne, Housing Sustainability in
Low Carbon Cities (London: Routledge, 2018); Harriet Bulkeley, Gareth
A.S. Edwards, and Sara Fuller, “Contesting Climate Justice in the City:
Examining Politics and Practice in Urban Climate Change Experiments,”
Global Environmental Change 25, no. 1 (2014): 31–40.
75 Adriana Allen, “Navigating Stigma through Everyday City-Making:
Gendered Trajectories, Politics and Outcomes in the Periphery of Lima,”
Urban Studies 59, no. 3 (2022): 490–508.
76 Aichi et al., “Group of Leading Subnational Governments toward Aichi
Biodiversity Targets,” 2022, https://bit.ly/3OL8hFK.
GOLD VI REPORT
 5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg

Box 7.2
Restoring relations between urban and natural areas through urban-rural linkages:
The example of integrated local food systems

Renaturing urbanization encompasses a broad range of complex relations that take place throughout a territory
and often extend beyond the administrative boundaries of the city. Restoring urban-nature relations and the vitality
of both systems implies the integration of the urban, peri-urban and rural worlds as a single continuum, with two

landscapes and ecological systems that span the territory and which are usually exploited for their rich resources. The
second is to tackle the problem of spatial exclusion in territories, disparities, and the lack of access to opportunities
suffered by rural populations. These populations tend to concentrate a large number of informal workers, important
pockets of poverty and also vulnerable groups, all of whom usually lack proper access to water, sanitation, digital
services, and also their right to the city and other basic human rights.

Rural-urban linkages are, amongst others, the guardians of sustainable production and consumption. If the focus is
placed on food, it should be underlined that conventional globalized food systems have been causing environmental
degradation, poor health and food insecurity for a long time and that this is now occurring with increased intensity,
and particularly in rural areas. The agri-food system is responsible for around 30% of GHG global emissions and is also
a major driver of land degradation, the loss of biodiversity, and water, air and soil pollution.77 The COVID-19 pandemic
has further exacerbated the deep vulnerabilities and inequalities that were already present in our local and global
systems78 and spotlighted the territorial dynamics that support them.79

In seeking systemic change and transformational pathways towards greater equality, an innovative perspective of
“urbanization” and of what is “urban” must take into consideration the interdependence of urban, peri-urban and rural
areas. These interlinkages constitute the most appropriate scale for spatial and socio-economic analysis and for
addressing these complex territorial relations. Local, and especially regional, governments need to apply territorial
approaches80 that build integrated and resilient systems within a context of accelerated climate change and increasingly
frequent disasters. These approaches need to acknowledge the fundamental relations between urban and rural areas
and their respective communities, workers and resources81 and to strengthen the interaction between, and mutual
support for, urban and rural stakeholders. In the case of food systems, this involves: (a) promoting local and shorter food
and agricultural supply chains; (b) supporting small-scale rural entrepreneurship and family-run and agroecological
businesses; (c) opting for and promoting nature-based solutions, local culture, traditions, knowledge and practices;
(d) diversifying production systems;82 (e) improving logistics and infrastructure; and (f) ensuring more equitable
access to public services for rural populations in relation to health, education, access to energy, and waste and water
management, etc. In order to promote an integrated rural-urban development and the restoration of relations between
human-built environments and nature, planning requires several preconditions: promoting more participatory and
inclusive governance arrangements; supporting locally-grounded interventions and balanced partnerships; and
reinforcing the agency and capabilities of rural communities.

77 Monica Crippa et al., “Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions,” Nature Food 2 (2021): 198–209.

Thompson, “Why Local Food Can Restore Our Failing Food System,” Sustainable Food Trust, 2021, https://bit.ly/36L483g; MUFPP Secretariat, “Milan Urban Food
Policy Pact,” 2022, https://bit.ly/3EMmNbs.

which had a negative impact on the supply and distribution of food.

80 UCLG World Forum of Regions, “Smart Territories in the Urban Era” (Barcelona, 2021), https://bit.ly/3OxvBGZ.

81 Intermediary cities play a particularly unique role as intermediation poles in their territories. This is key to enabling civic participation and a comprehensive
approach to food systems, ecosystem services, tourism, migration and/or climate change. This was recently emphasized by the UCLG World Forum on Intermediary
Cities, which led to the adoption of the Declaration of Kütahya, in October 2021.

82 IFAD, “Transforming Food Systems for Rural Prosperity” (Roma, 2021), https://bit.ly/3OEq2Xh.

07 RENATURING 35
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
Source: Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose, Flickr.
Urban garden in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Efforts to apply justice within the different approaches
have shown that, while fair access to resources is a key
component of transformative change, only focusing on
access and distribution is not enough. For example, any
attempts to address equitable and sustainable access
- undesirable consequences by scrutinizing the factors
entiated impacts in marginalized black communities,
the exclusion of agro-ecological practices and the loss
of biodiversity.83 However, while the poor diets and
individual behaviour of many African Americans have
become the focus of many US urban policies, hardly
any attention has been given to addressing the steady
decline in the control over healthier and more sustainable
food production. Relating justice to urban renaturing
therefore requires tackling processes of maldistri-
bution and misrecognition in cities while, at the same
time, seeking to achieve greater inclusion and parity
of political participation in decision-making. In short,
this requires building bridges between planning actions
83 Samina Raja, Kevin Morgan, and Enjoli Hall, “Planning for Equitable Urban
and Regional Food Systems,” Built Environment 43, no. 3 (2017): 309–14.
36
that promote justice, environmental sustainability and
resilience, and those everyday planning and political
practices. Concurrently, it requires casting a critical
eye on historical urban trajectories and policies as
well as anticipating any potentially unintended and/or
that tend to make them unjust.84
Building upon the above considerations, this section
explores three distinctive approaches through which
LRGs, working in close collaboration with social move-
ments and organized civil society, are currently putting
urban environmental justice into practice. The case
studies highlighted in this section show how different
initiatives and processes, when left to mature over time,
helped to expand the scope for transformative change.
84 Adriana Allen and Jeb Brugmann, “Achieving Urban Transformation: From
Visions to Pathways,” in GEO for Cities - Towards Green and Just Cities, ed.
UNEP and UNHSP (UN-Habitat, 2021), 95–124, https://bit.ly/3KaT2SN.
GOLD VI REPORT

5.1 Preventing
green
gentrification
and displacement
As discussed in the previous subsection, one critical
factor in most city renaturing experiences has been
displacement occurs. To prevent potential social injus-
tices associated with the implementation of green
infrastructure, LRGs need to put into place anti-dis-
policies while, at the same time, addressing potential
problems of long-term pollution.85 Here they have a
strong responsibility vis-à-vis polluters and developers.
They must address both long-term industry-based
marginalized, yet greening, communities. In the 2021
report entitled Policy and Planning Tools for Urban Green
Justice,86 researchers from the Barcelona Laboratory
for Urban Environmental Justice and ICLEI analyzed 50
tools and regulations available to cities. These included
rent controls and freezes, compulsory and ambitious
levels of inclusionary zoning, density bonuses for devel-
opers, development taxes, freezes or cuts in property
taxes in gentrifying neighbourhoods, rental vouchers,
and community land trusts, among many others. The
vignettes below examine some of these tools.
Johannesburg (South Africa)
° policy was implemented since approximately 2019.
design problems inherited from Apartheid, as
well as acute social and racial inequalities,
This policy requires the provision of affordable
housing units within multifamily developments of
more than 20 units, while also granting additional
density rights. In doing this, the city recognized
85 Helen V.S. Cole et al., “Adapting the Environmental Risk Transition Theory
for Urban Health Inequities: An Observational Study Examining Complex
Environmental Riskscapes in Seven Neighborhoods in Global North Cities,”
Social Science & Medicine 277 (2021): 113907.
86 Emilia Oscilowicz, “Policy and Planning Toolkit for Urban Green Justice,”
Green Inequalities, 2021, https://bit.ly/3Kaes2F.
07 RENATURING
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
that the urban poor live in predominantly residential
areas on the periphery of Johannesburg and that
there is very little mixing of households across the
city. There is also a large backlog of housing for
low-income households, which the LRG aims to
tackle through a “pro-poor” approach. New municipal
bylaws have established that any new developments
must include a minimum of 20% of housing units
reserved for “inclusionary zoning”: destined for
“low income and low middle-income households, or
households who may not otherwise be able to afford
living in those developments”.87 The city also hopes
that this framework will facilitate land value capture
in favour of the municipality and its residents rather
than external developers. Finally, the new rules
aim to enable LRGs to take maximum advantage
of investment in state infrastructure and to ensure
the population, and not just to that of elites.
Portland (USA)
° In what is supposedly one of the most sustainable
problem over the past two decades and has
exacerbated historical problems associated with
earlier racial segregation policies. One example of
this can be observed in the district of Albina, in the
north-east of the city, where African Americans were
redlining and other discriminatory housing policies.
As a result, by the 1960s, 80% of the city’s black
community called that area home. However, over the
years, a succession of urban renewal projects, which
have included a highway and hospital expansion
programme, have razed to the ground the homes
of almost 200, predominantly black, families. In
response to the crisis caused by the displacement of
Black and Latin residents, the city’s “Right to Return”
tenants and their families, most of whom belong
to racialized minorities, and helped them to move
back to their former neighbourhoods. The LRG has
earmarked 20 million USD for affordable housing
and included measures that seek to redress the
or at risk of displacement, due to urban renewal
interventions, particularly in the city’s northern and
87 City of Johannesburg, “Inclusionary Housing Incentives, Regulations and
Mechanisms” (Johannesburg, 2018), https://bit.ly/3kiS6RL.
37
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
north-eastern neighbourhoods. Priority is also given
to residents whose property was expropriated or
order. From an equitable mobility standpoint, such
mechanisms are also accompanied by measures to
support easy and affordable access to sustainable
mobility infrastructure. However, current policy
displacement did not happen in a race-neutral way,
which has tended to limit its scope for serving as a
Vienna (Austria)
°
which, to a large degree, formed part of the
heritage of the city’s imperial and monarchical past,
Vienna’s contemporary efforts toward building a
green city began in the 1960s. They started with
a four-decade megaproject development plan
that included converting brownfield sites into
parks, redeveloping empty spaces to make small
green areas, and restoring more than a dozen
parks. Some of these projects involved public
participation and some were codesigned spaces
destined for particular demographic groups, such
as children, young people or older people. Today,
Vienna is considered Europe’s most liveable city,
with housing rights playing a central role in its
government funding to cap rents and are obliged
projects. In addition, to ensure the construction
of high-quality, affordable housing, the city also
allows private developers to submit proposals to
develop city-owned land. Proposals are evaluated
based on their architectural quality, environmental
performance, social sustainability, and a series of
economic parameters. By combining equitable and
participatory greening strategies, Vienna has been
able to prevent large-scale housing displacement
while ensuring environmental quality.88
What these experiences have in common is their
emphasis on ensuring that environmental improve-
ments are not pursued at the expense of equity,
and that the right to affordable and safe housing
is prioritized. This calls for a deep consideration of
88 Carmen Pérez-del-Pulgar, “Prioritizing Green and Social Goals: The
Progressive Vienna Model in Jeopardy,” in The Green City and Social Injustice:
21 Tales from North America and Europe, ed. Isabelle Anguelovski and James
Connolly (London: Routledge, 2021).
38
natural and social diversity, and the prevention of green
89
5.2 Restoring the
social function
of renaturing
The previous discussion demonstrates that one factor
which is key to the articulation of environmental and
social justice goals is that of reclaiming the social
function of cities; this is not just about housing, but also
concerns the use of urban land and nature. In addition
community
land trusts (CLTs) can also play a key role in artic-
ulating multisectoral efforts, while securing both
the social and ecological functions of land. CLTs
enable municipalities to take land permanently out
of the speculative market, while creating new, green,
environmentally-protected areas. In some cases, the
non-speculative tenure of land allows CLTs to develop
urban agriculture facilities for small community gardens,
or even large farms and open spaces, for greenhouses or
animal farming, while also buying land out for affordable
housing options. In others, CLTs are able to improve
thus building resilience by restoring ecosystems and
creating more protected housing.
The concept of “garden cities”, as developed by Ebenezer
Howard, in 1898, still offers a very inspiring alternative
to the model of expansive urban development that
transforms green areas into impermeable surfaces.
Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City, which were built to
the north of London (UK), applied Howard’s ideas from
planning, architecture, and local food production to the
community ownership of all the land, through a trust, in
an effort to prevent speculation and guarantee a harmo-
nious and sustainable society for their citizens.90 Unfor-
tunately, this collective ownership of land has not been
replicated on a large scale elsewhere, as most garden
cities have been developed in other parts of Europe
89 Anguelovski, Connolly, and Brand, “From Landscapes of Utopia to the
Margins of the Green Urban Life.”
GOLD VI REPORT

and in North and South America without addressing the
need for social ownership of land. In these many other
garden cities and garden neighbourhoods, increases in
and thus generated traditional inequalities, in terms
of access to land and housing, as those found in other
cities and towns.
Since the 1970s, CLTs have gone beyond Howard’s
original idea by removing land from the speculative
market, as per the Commoning pathway discussed in
Chapter 4. The non-speculative tenure of land allows
CLTs to develop urban agricultural facilities for small
community gardens, or even large farms and open
spaces for greenhouses and/or livestock farming.91 CLT
trustees, who typically include residents, community
green and agricultural land from being developed for
real estate purposes. On the contrary, they can allocate
it to the production of healthy locally-grown food, which
generates job opportunities within the community. It is
important to highlight that this urban agriculture does
urban land for passive uses, which are essential for
restoring the social and environmental functions of
cities and towns, and serves as a means to counteract
speculative land development.
Toronto (Canada), Boston (USA)
and San Juan (Puerto Rico)
° Examples of urban farms on CLT land include the
650 m² Milky Way Garden plot stewarded by the
Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust, in Toronto.
In 2021, the CLT also secured 36 affordable housing
units through a 8.5 million USD acquisition made in
Bank. This allowed the trust to acquire an at-risk,
low-rent, residential building to protect affordable
CLT has extended its community ownership in the
area from 15 to 51 units of affordable rental housing:
equivalent to an increase of 240%. In the case of
the Dudley Neighbors Incorporated CLT, in Roxbury,
Boston, the CLT received 12,140 hectares of vacant
public land from the municipality, in trust, in 1988.92
This was used to generate affordable housing and
commercial development opportunities for the
91 Greg Rosenberg and Jeffrey Yuen, “Beyond Housing: Urban Agriculture
and Commercial Development by Community Land Trusts,” Lincoln Institute
of Land Policy Working Paper, 2012, https://bit.ly/3kaKtx1.
92 CoHabitat Network, ‘Fighting Climate Change in Cities’, GOLD VI
Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
07 RENATURING
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
members of this urban district community. From
the very beginning, this CLT assigned plots of land
to use as urban farms, community greenhouses and
gardens, in order to revitalize the neighbourhood
and to promote access to locally produced food.
The land under the greenhouses was leased to
which trains young people to operate farms.93 This
food production initiative has helped to attenuate
the impact of the COVID-19 crisis through the
free distribution of food to those who lost their
incomes due to the lockdowns and economic crisis.94
Another valuable example, which has already been
discussed in Chapter 4, is the CLT model adopted
in San Juan. This has addressed the impact of a
degraded channel and of land ownership disputes
and enabled communities along the canal, and in the
surrounding areas, to implement an environmental
rehabilitation process.95
Other approaches to reclaiming the social and ecolog-
ical function of housing, land and nature include exper-
imentation with alternative modes of sustainable living
that cities use. The experiences of Rennes and Karise
provide good examples of how this can be done in prac-
tice: by simultaneously enabling better access to food,
energy, adequate housing and mobility while extending
the life cycles of resources, as well as promoting biodi-
versity and both green and blue infrastructure.
Rennes (France)96
° When there is public will, the social and ecological
function of urban land can be achieved even at the
metropolitan scale. This is the case of the city of
Rennes, in Brittany, north-western France. By 2020,
half of the metropolitan population lived in what
has been known for more than 30 years as the ville
archipel (archipelago city), in the midst of a sea of
93 Harry Smith and Tony Hernández, “Take a Stand, Own the Land Dudley
Neighbors Inc., a Community Land Trust in Boston, Massachusetts,” in On
Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust,
ed. John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed, and María E. Hernández-Torrales
(Madison: Terra Nostra Press, 2020), 283–294.283–94.
94 Pierre Arnold and Nina Quintas, “Global Study: Community-Led Housing
in the COVID-19 Context,” 2020, https://bit.ly/37bV4ER.
95 Carrión, ‘Building Resilience with Nature: Restoring Ecosystems and
Communities through Public Policies’.
96 CoHabitat Network, ‘Fighting Climate Change in Cities’.
39
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
urbanization by various spatial planning schemes.97
Instead of spreading like an oil stain, the growth of
the metropolis has been controlled by densifying the
heart of Rennes and the surrounding small towns.
These towns are connected to areas of employment
metropolitan public transport system (served by
trains, buses, metro and cycle paths). In 2016, the
municipality came up with the idea of becoming
a ville nourricière (feeder city). This involved
promoting and investing in large and small-scale
urban agriculture initiatives, based upon producing
sustainable food and promoting biodiversity. In
addition to its urban parks and forests, the city now
has 225 hectares of urban agricultural land which
contains: 27 large farms; six sites with agricultural
institutes, or training farms for young people;
over 1,000 family vegetable gardens; and over 70
communal gardens, all of which are located within
the urban fabric.98 The resulting network of urban
farming areas, which is combined with parks, rivers
and canals, contributes to the wider metropolitan
“green and blue” corridors that connect the forests
streets and backyards of the city. This network plays
an essential role in protecting and developing the
99
Partnering with non-profit and civil society
organizations has promoted the dissemination
of sustainable agricultural practices such as
permaculture, composting, and vegetable growing
on urban wasteland and rooftops. The LRG has
encouraged these initiatives through its annual
participatory budgeting process, specific land
allocations, the free delivery of composters and
various capacity-building programmes. With the
help of collective mapping involving the municipality
and the non-profit association Vert le Jardin,
or collective compost sites and participate in
renaturing the city and generating more cohesive
communities.100 Collaborations between various
municipalities, the metropolitan administration
(Rennes Métropole) and local citizens have been
97 Jean-Yves Chapuis, Rennes, La ville archipel. Entretiens avec Jean Viard
(Rennes: Librairie Durance, 2013).
98 Rennes Ville et Métropole, “Rennes, ville nourricière,” 2017,
https://bit.ly/3Mu6Byu.
99 AUDIAR Rennes, “SCoT du Pays de Rennes - Tableau de Bord” (Rennes,
2020), https://bit.ly/3EMDyDu; AUDIAR Rennes, “Modélisation des trames
vertes et bleues” (Rennes, 2020), https://bit.ly/3KhJzt9.
100 Vert le Jardin, “C’est quoi Vert le Jardin ?,” 2022, https://bit.ly/3veRDGA.
40
key to driving a contagious renaturing process at
different scales.
Karise (Denmark)101
° Permatopia provides an innovative example of how
community-led housing can integrate sustainable
practices by developing a cohousing and farming
community with the values of permaculture and
sustainability at its core. Participatively managed
and run by 90 families, on 29 hectares of land located
in Karise, about 60 km south of Copenhagen, the
project is rooted in the values of permaculture, the
circular economy and food sovereignty. Permatopia’s
housing and farming community is a sustainable,
alternative system.102
The local housing was built using non-toxic and
sustainable materials with a low-ecological footprint
and designed to be expanded by self-construction,
based on an emission-free heating system powered
by a wind turbine and with heat storage.103 Sewage
is treated on-site, within what seeks to be a closed,
sustainable cycle that recovers nutrients that will
later be used in on-site farming. This allows the
food.104
of the local zoning system with the municipality of
Karise and has dedicated 2 hectares of rural land
to housing, as an extension of the village of Karise.
This allowed the construction of the sewage and
heating systems.105
Permatopia combines sustainable housing with
affordable solutions through social rents (at under
local market prices) which democratizes access to
to promote diversity within the community, different
housing quotas have been earmarked for families
with children, middle-aged people, young couples
without children and the elderly.106 The project
includes the provision of public rental housing (in
which the housing is owned by a public housing
101 CoHabitat Network, ‘Fighting Climate Change in Cities’.
102 Euroheat & Power, “Eco-Village ‘Permatopia’ Rolling out a Sustainable
Future,” Case Study, 2017, https://bit.ly/3rTcXzr.
103 CoHabitat, “Karise Permatopia,” 2020, https://bit.ly/3xYBBmh.
104 Crippa et al., “Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global
Anthropogenic GHG Emissions.”
105 Crippa et al.
106 Expat in Denmark, “Interview with Kennet from Karise Permatopia,” 2017,
https://bit.ly/3KexwfV.
GOLD VI REPORT

Source: Pierre Arnold.
organisation), cooperative housing and privately-
owned housing.107
To effectively respond to the daunting challenges
currently facing society, there is a need for systemic
change that reaches beyond individual sustainable prac-
tices. LRGs have an important role to play in achieving
uses that can guarantee the conservation of agricultural
land uses despite the pressure on land as a result of
the demographic growth of cities. The combination
central areas to conserve green areas both within and
around cities is a key lesion to be learned from the
experience of the “archipelago-city” of Rennes. LRGs
can also sell, or lease, public land to CLTs to take it out
of the speculative market and ensure land uses that
of urban agriculture and community gardens high-
lighted in Boston and Toronto. By participating in the
governance of CLTs, LRGs can orient land management
and purchases, working together with residents and
community-based organizations. This collaborative land
management model offers important potential that is
yet to be fully explored by LRGs. Finally, community-led
initiatives, like that of Permatopia in Karise, are now
107 Karise Permatopia, “Oplev Permatopia,” 2022, https://bit.ly/36LkSHG.
07 RENATURING
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
emerging everywhere because of increased awareness
of the possibilities offered by just urban renaturing.
LRGs have an essential role to play in encouraging and
supporting similar citizen-led innovative initiatives
elsewhere. They can contribute to this by adjusting
existing regulatory frameworks and providing land,
opportunities, and funding to facilitate the shift towards
more sustainable lifestyles and human settlements.
These experiences demonstrate that for renaturing
to help promote urban and territorial equality, it is
essential to achieve greater balance and equality not
only between society and the environment, but also
within human habitat as a whole. The dual problem
of the pandemic and climate change has shown the
urgent need to reembed urban systems within natural
systems in a compatible way; this has become a
question of survival, at both the local and planetary
scales. Renaturing provides pathways to restore the
vitality of both cities and the natural environment, while
also supporting the needs and identities of historically
marginalized groups. Protecting ecosystem services,
fostering sustainable (and more circular) resource use,
and resisting climate change call for a greater joint
effort to rekindle our common and organic relation-
ship with the land and nature, not least in the urban
environment.
41
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
5.3 Crafting a
rights-based
approach to
renaturing
A rights-based approach to social and environmental
challenges has dominated much of the urban discussion
relation to the Right to the City and rights in the city.
The call to arms of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
for inclusivity.108
thinkers and progressive local authorities have all called
for a rights-based, ethical approach to planning and
governance, as a means of cocreating transformative
change through renewed social contracts that have
socio-environmental justice as their core value (as
discussed in Chapter 3).109
Several cities across the world have adopted a rights-
based approach to articulating questions of envi-
ronmental sustainability and social equity through
their resource allocation, policies, programmes and
projects. Such an approach needs to be sustained
by large-scale participatory approaches and citizen
engagement. The case of Rosario (Argentina) exem-
over time to give a voice to those who are typically
marginalized and to protect common values across
different spheres of urban life. Rosario has developed a
broad vision of how to promote equity and sustainability
and a democratically grounded process that drives the
city’s strategic planning for the whole metropolitan
area. This has been fostered over 20 years by a contin-
uous commitment to decentralization, transparency,
accountability and participation.
108 UNDP, “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development,” Division for Sustainable Development Goals (New York, 2015),
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E.
109 Eva Garcia-Chueca and Lorenzo Vidal, Advancing Urban Rights: Equality
and Diversity in the City (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2022).
42
Rosario (Argentina)
° Since 1989, successive city mayors have sustained
a rights-based approach, building a unique example
of progressive municipalism. Over the years, the
democratization of municipal governance has
involved the decentralization of resources and
decision-making capacities to the district level.
With over one million inhabitants living in six
districts, each municipal district has undertaken
a robust, well-grounded, participatory process
not only to define urban projects and allocate
municipal resources, but also to develop and update
the strategic plan for the whole of Rosario.110 The
outcomes of this approach include a comprehensive
climate change plan that seeks to integrate urban
agriculture, food security and greening, temperature
mitigation and stormwater management strategies,
while promoting cost-effective solutions to
improvements in building insulation and drainage
infrastructure.
One essential component of Rosario’s long-term
approach to equitable and sustainable urban
development is the Integrated Programme for the
Rehabilitation of Informal Settlements, which was
created in 2001.111 A second key component has been
its Urban Agriculture Programme.112 Launched in 2002,
this programme has expanded its scope over time to
integrate urban agriculture into land-use planning.
It builds on mechanisms such as the systematic
identification of vacant land and giving official
recognition to the rights to engage in farming through
the peaceful usurpation of vacant plots. The Urban
Agriculture Programme has a strong gender focus: it
of new livelihoods at different points throughout the
food chain.113 By 2020, the programme had secured
75 hectares of land within Rosario destined to agro-
ecological production and urban gardens and had
conserved over 700 hectares more for the production
of food in peri-urban areas. Over 2,500 tonnes of fruit
and vegetables per year are currently produced and
110 Florian Steinberg, “Strategic Urban Planning in Latin America:
Experiences of Building and Managing the Future,” Habitat International 29,
no. 1 (2005): 69–93.
111 Florencia Almansi, “Regularizing Land Tenure within Upgrading
Programmes in Argentina; the Cases of Promeba and Rosario Hábitat,”
Environment and Urbanization 21, no. 2 (2009): 389–413.
112 Programa de Agricultura Urbana.
113 Louise Guénette, “Rosario, Argentina — A City Hooked on Urban Farming,”
IDRC Case Study, 2010, https://bit.ly/3Lg6IgI.
GOLD VI REPORT

The third key element of Rosario’s strategy is its
in 2003 and has now become a key redistributive
mechanism, an instrument of rights-based
governance, a communications tool, and a vehicle
to help promote gender equality and citizenship
capacities. 114 Between 2003 and 2011, the
participatory annual budget amounted to roughly
9 million USD, representing about 22% of the
municipal budget for investment.115 After adopting
a rights-based approach, Rosario has conducted
a full-scale overhaul of its planning mechanisms,
including the adoption of a clear set of rules and
processes. The aim is to guide public and private
urban development on reserved land in order to
create public and community spaces. This is to
be accompanied by the conservation of the city’s
historical and natural heritage, the application of
density controls and a policy of land value capture.
Although these redistribution mechanisms are not
without their challenges, the fact that they remain
operational across the city after several years is
and of other cities that are committed to injecting
more justice into their planning processes, has been
their capacity to reverse previously established
municipal priorities and long-term trends towards
disinvestment and to replace them with more just,
renaturing solutions. Such “reversals” imply a shift in
political and governance priorities (to enable poor and
impoverished women, and other structurally discrim-
inated or marginalized groups to make decisions) and
the redirecting of historical investment towards poor
neighbourhoods and adjacent peri-urban areas.116
However, the adoption of a rights-based approach
to protect the rights of indigenous people who have
traditionally managed their territories in a sustainable
way, but whose livelihoods have become increasingly
threatened by economic extractivism. Indigenous
peoples are renowned for their rich cultures, tradi-
114 Josh Lerner and Daniel Schugurensky, “Who Learns What in
Participatory Democracy?,” in Democratic Practices as Learning
Opportunities (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 85–100, https://bit.ly/3rQBg0K.
115 Yves Cabannes and Barbara Lipietz, “The Democratic Contribution
of Participatory Budgeting PDF Logo,” LSE Department of International
Development Working Paper Series (London, 2015), https://bit.ly/3OGmrrM.
116 Yves Cabannes, “Contribution of Participatory Budgeting to Provision
and Management of Basic Services: Municipal Practices and Evidence from
the Field” (London, 2014), https://bit.ly/3MwMrE4.
07 RENATURING
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
tional knowledge systems and unique ways of life. In
many countries, however, the legacy of centuries of
colonialism is tangible. They have been dispossessed of
their ancestral lands and territories and also deprived of
the natural resources upon which they depend for their
survival. Although their rights have been historically
neglected and undermined, the adoption of the UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,117 in
September 2007, was the culmination of over two
decades of efforts and negotiations. It constitutes
the result of the solidarity and close partnerships of
indigenous peoples with governments, non-govern-
ment organizations, academics, and parliamentarians,
amongst others. LRGs do not only have the obligation,
but also the mechanisms, to protect the rights of
indigenous people. Even so, and as shown in the case
of the Serra do Mar Complex in Parana (Brazil), their
actual implementation and enforcement are still lagging
behind expectations in most contexts.
Parana, Serra do Mar Complex (Brazil)118
° The Atlantic Forest territory, located between the
states of Parana and Sao Paulo, is part of the Serra
do Mar Complex. It extends across the adjacent
coastal plain and also includes the estuarine
complex of Iguape-Cananeia-Parana. In 1999, this
territory and its people were recognized by UNESCO
as part of the Natural Heritage of Humanity. This
recognition acknowledged that this region is one
of the richest biomes on the entire planet in terms
of biodiversity. It also acknowledged that this is the
homeland of the Quilombolas, Caiçaras and other
indigenous peoples, such as the Guarani M’bya, who
are responsible for the conservation, vitality, and
continuity of the Atlantic Forest’s rivers, bays, coves,
mangrove swamps, mountains and waterfalls. In the
1980s, these territories also began to be included
in the protected areas established by the Brazilian
government for the conservation of the remaining
areas of the Atlantic Forest. In Parana state, the
protected areas lie in the recesses of Paranagua Bay,
where the Port of Paranagua, which is the biggest
Brazilian port for grain exports and the largest grain
terminal in Latin America, is also located. In recent
decades, the expansion of the port complex has
damaged not only the local environment, including
the sea, bays and land, and their biodiversity, but
117 UNDESA, “State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples,” 2009,
https://bit.ly/3EKSeD2.
118 Karina Coelho, ‘Caiçaras, Artisanal Fishermen, and Guarani M’byá’s
Territories between Protected Areas and Paranagua’s Port’, GOLD VI
Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
43
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
also the traditional livelihoods of the local people and
the immaterial cultural heritage of their way of life.
While economic interests have been let loose, the
rules governing protected areas have restricted
most of the traditional uses that the indigenous
instruments already exist at the national level and
are meant to guarantee the rights of indigenous
people; they include consultation protocols and
compensation and mitigation mechanisms. Local
and national NGOs are currently pressing the
Brazilian government to observe International
Labour Organization Convention No. 169 on
indigenous and tribal peoples. Environmental
licensing processes, as well as compensation and
peoples’ rights to be informed and consulted prior
to any new ventures that might have an impact on
their land, culture and environment.
Last but not least, just renaturing calls for recog-
nizing the contributions, and advancing the rights,
of everyday city-makers whose practices are often
dismissed as being “informal”. Whether supporting
the social production of housing and infrastructure or
protecting the livelihood practices that help to renature
cities on the ground, these experiences advance a
feminist perspective that gives greater importance
and centrality to the everyday city-making practices
of poor and impoverished women and men.
Cape Town (South Africa)119
° Between 2013 and 2019, the South African Slum
Dwellers International (SDI) Alliance worked together
with other civil society partners in Cape Town on
a joint project to upgrade informal settlements;
this formed part of the Comic Relief Four Cities
Programme. As its contribution to the project, the
establish a metro-level fund for upgrading informal
settlements. It saw this as a key priority and as a
way of contributing to the Department of Human
Settlements review of policy and practice for
upgrading informal settlements. This set the stage
for engagement with the Western Cape Province
for the development of a provincial-level approach
to upgrading informal settlements. As previously
mentioned in Chapter 4, SDI uses community-led
119 Slum Dwellers International, ‘Partnership for Resilient Citywide Slum
Upgrading, Cape Town, South Africa’, GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases
Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
44
data collection practices and protocols to make a
rapid appraisal of all the informal settlements in the
Western Cape area. In 2016, this appraisal was used
to develop the Western Cape’s Informal Settlement
Support Framework and Programme
community-led informal settlement data in this way
emphasizes the value of using community-collected
data on informal settlements to development
policies and plans. This is in line with the needs,
priorities and realities of informal settlement
In 2017, South Africa’s national government began
to work on a process to review the White Paper on
Human Settlements. Building on previous work,
in 2018-19, a much deeper and more meaningful
relationship was established between the South
African SDI Alliance and the City of Cape Town,
founded upon a shared interest in examining
what it meant to turn Cape Town into a “resilient”
city. This was of particular importance to the
South African SDI Alliance, as no strategy can be
considered truly resilient without it looking at the
challenges, lessons and unique situations faced by
those living in informal settlements. The alliance
influenced the City of Cape Town’s resilience
strategy and ensured that the voices of informal
settlement dwellers were heard, understood, and
through the presentation of data collected by the
community from over 70 informal settlements
and relating to their upgrading interventions. The
(a) settlements without access to water, sanitation
and electricity; (b) settlements with inadequate
levels of basic services; and (c) settlements located
on private land, where it would be very challenging
to intervene. The process helped identify service
delivery priorities in 74 informal settlements and
opened the way to collaborations on projects
involving other partners, such as the Western
Cape Human Settlements Department through its
Informal Settlement Support Programme.
In addition to experiences like the one outlined above,
in which LRGs proactively engage with community-led
upgrading processes, the development of inclusive
recycling systems also offers insightful examples. These
experiences show how pro-poor approaches can be
used not only to advance just renaturing, but also to
GOLD VI REPORT

Source: Juliana Gonçalves.
Waste picker cooperative in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
build and protect the livelihoods and rights of workers
within the same process.120
Belo Horizonte (Brazil)121
° Belo Horizonte’s integrated and sustainable solid
in advancing towards more inclusive recycling
systems. Firstly, worker cooperatives are contracted
out as service providers for the collecting and sorting
play a key role in advancing the principles of circularity
and inclusion through the planning, implementation
and monitoring of the recycling system.
The National Waste and Citizenship Forum, which is
a multistakeholder platform involving public, private
and civil society representatives, was created in 1998
under the leadership of UNICEF Brazil. Its mission
was to advance towards: (a) the eradication of child
labour and open dumps; (b) the implementation of a
as service providers; and (d) the consolidation
120 Melanie Samson, “The Political Work of Waste Picker Integration,” in The
Informal Economy Revisited: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future, ed.
Martha Alter Chen and Françoise Carré (London: Routledge, 2020), 195–200.
121 WIEGO, ‘Building Resilience in Times of Crisis: The Waste & Citizenship
Forum in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’, GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases
Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
07 RENATURING
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
of a participatory approach to urban waste
management.122 Following this precedent, and
given the long-standing tradition of progressive
local policy, the city of Belo Horizonte and its civil
society organizations created the Municipal Waste
and Citizenship Forum in 2003-2004. Some of the
subsequent achievements of the forum include: (a)
pickers cooperatives (established in the early days of
the forum); (b) the recognition of new cooperatives
that were formed during the 2000 economic
downturn; (c) the codevelopment of guidelines for
providing municipal funding to other cooperatives;
(d) measures to help building the management
capacity of waste pickers; and (e) transitioning from
social accords to proper commercial contracts to
regulate service provision.
The forum has played a significant role in
redesigning the selective collection of municipal
waste, expanding the coverage of door-to-door
recyclable collection, and extending contractual
arrangements to more cooperatives operating in the
city. Civil society actors participating in the forum
have been working together on the Zero Waste
Project in the Santa Tereza neighbourhood of Belo
Horizonte for the past four years. This community-
based initiative includes providing and promoting
services associated with: food composting, a food
coop system, a vegetable garden, a drop off site for
recyclables, and campaigns for raising environmental
Recycling, which was involved in the coproduction
of emergency relief measures and safety protocols
for cooperative sorting centres. These efforts
resulted in the inclusion of cooperative members
and unorganized waste pickers on the Municipal
Secretary for Social Assistance’s list for receiving
food baskets and a detailed operational manual
containing safety protocols for waste pickers.123
The inclusion of waste pickers in Belo Horizonte’s
solid waste management system highlights the value
rights over time. The current challenge involves how
to align a green economy approach, which is at once
inclusive and pro-poor, and which represents the
122 Sonia Maria Dias, “The Municipal Waste and Citizenship Forum: A
Platform for Social Inclusion and Participation,” WIEGO Policy Brief, 2011,
https://bit.ly/3rO64Q4.
123 Sonia Maria Dias et al., “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Inclusive
Recycling in Brazil,” 2020, https://bit.ly/3vMGnAe.
45
5 BRINgINg JUSTICE To URBAN RENATURINg
Source: Bruno Greco.
Waste picker cooperative in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
demands of both organized and unorganized waste
pickers, with conducting work at the city-wide scale.
In this respect, the Municipal Waste and Citizenship
Forum has demonstrated that wider deliberative
governance structures are essential for advancing just
renaturing. They can help to promote decent working
conditions and to expand inclusive and sustainable
waste management within the city, even when faced
by local and national government austerity measures,
political fragmentation and competing interests that
constrain infrastructural investment.
Kampala (Uganda)124
° Community-based organizations in Kampala are
currently championing the production of waste-
based energy. The city generates over 1,500 tonnes
of waste per day (80% of which is organic matter), but
only about 40-50% of this is collected and disposed
of through formal channels. Energy briquettes
made from organic waste present a plausible
alternative to wood fuel and charcoal. Despite the
clear potential demand for energy briquettes within
the city, their production is only undertaken at a
micro level and through informal processes. It is
therefore impossible to meet the growing demand
124 Teddy Kisembo, Judith Mbabazi, and Paul I. Mukwaya, ‘Community Based
Production of Waste-Based Energy, Kampala, Uganda’, GOLD VI Pathways to
Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing (Barcelona, 2022).
46
in partnership with ACTogether Uganda and Lubaga
Charcoal Briquette Cooperative Society, is currently
working in seven informal settlements across the
city with the aim of promoting societal change
and transformation through knowledge exchange.
This initiative has built capacities in product
keeping, branding, and collective marketing. It has
also provided briquette making machines (a set of
four machines that includes a carbonizer, mixer,
crusher and press machine) to each of the seven
The project is based on the premise that coproducing
knowledge and engaging in practices that involve
the communities themselves helps to develop and
expand the action of business start-ups. These
processes increase the integration of the urban
poor into the urban economy. Many residents
in informal settlements have come together in
loosely organized savings and self-help groups. The
coproduction of knowledge and capacity building
has been based on these, as well as on existing,
village savings and loan schemes established by the
has been placed on community-led initiatives using
an “opportunities creation” approach to explore and
demonstrate strategies that can later be scaled
up and contribute to the transformation of waste
management within the city as a whole.
GOLD VI REPORT

6 Renaturing
urbanization for
a just urban transition
To conclude this chapter, the core argument will be
summarized, followed by some recommendations for
ways in which local, regional and national governments
can work more closely with civil society organizations
towards establishing a just urban transition through
renaturing their cities and territories.
The starting point of this chapter was the notion
that “renaturing urbanization” responds to the need
to see urbanization processes and dynamics as being
embedded within, rather than disconnected from,
wider ecological systems and that it forms part of
face of a long tradition of regarding urbanization as a
socio-technical process of development that depends
on the extraction of natural resources from the global
commons and the disposal of waste back into the global
commons. This tradition assumes that there are no
limits to these sources and sinks. The result is a series
of global poly-crises that have instigated the emergence
related to the climate crisis. However, urbanization
has permitted the colonization of the commons and
has also concentrated wealth in the hands of urban
has been argued that a just urban transition, to a more
equitable and sustainable world, should seek to restore
the balance between society and nature that was lost
when urbanization became a socio-economic process
the global commons.
07 RENATURING
6 RENATURINg URBANIzATIoN FoR A JUST URBAN TRANSITIoN
LRGs around the world are recognizing that they have
a responsibility to face the challenge of renaturing
urbanization. This chapter tells many of these stories,
some of which are success stories, while others are
not; either way, they are stories that many others can
learn from. They illustrate the fact that over a vast
range of contexts, the challenge of renaturing urban
systems is being addressed in different ways. While
global governance responses to global poly-crises, they
can foster more just urban transitions. Their different
points of departure are, however, not surprisingly,
-
tion, or including informal settlements in urban devel-
infrastructure to access renewable energy, decarbonize
mobility, conserve water resources, promote green
buildings, or process sewage in ecological ways. What
we see emerging is a vast multiplicity of experiments
that may seem disconnected, but which contribute, via
international learning networks, to a great repository of
memories and knowledge that can be used in the future.
If human civilization is to survive, it will require more than
the types of global agreements on how to “transform the
world” that appear in the preambles to many international
treaties and national constitutions. It will, instead, be
the result of radical incrementalism, driven by the kinds
of experiments discussed in this chapter. To make
sense of these experimental dynamics and to explore
their wider implications, four key themes have been
47
6 RENATURINg URBANIzATIoN FoR A JUST URBAN TRANSITIoN
discussed: collibratory urban governance, material
rights-based approaches to renaturing urbanization.
Instead of summarizing the essence of each of these
items, the following core statement highlights what is
of relevance for the LRGs that have been mandated to
act in the best interests of their respective populations.
To reconcile rising levels of complexity and the increas-
ingly urgent need for directionality, various modes
of collibratory governance have emerged in many
different parts of the world. Although not recognized
as such, the “governance of governance” refers to the
emergence of new capacities for facilitating change,
partnering and directionality.
To reduce the resource requirements of the world’s
towns and cities (including those for land), as urban
populations almost double by 2050, it will be necessary
to achieve the substitution of resources, improve the
their supply, while the latter concerns creating more
socially integrated, equitable, and less car based urban
neighbourhoods.
To transform urban landscapes, multisectoral greening
will be required which must promote greater social
integration of poor communities. This can be achieved
through: (a) measures that improve urban well-being; (b)
planning innovations that reembed neighbourhoods into
their green and blue environments; and (c) regulatory
interventions that green the built environment in ways
that increase, rather than reduce, affordability.
To ensure that the renaturing of urbanization results
in a just, rather than an unjust, transition, it will be
necessary to include a rights-based approach aimed
at safeguarding the rights and livelihoods of the most
marginalized urban citizens. This will call for concerted
The approaches and experiences examined throughout
this chapter are necessarily complex and they must
be so in order to learn how to tackle the challenge
of achieving greater social equity and ecological
sustainability. To avoid locking urban development
into socio-environmentally negative trajectories,
better, against all kinds of inequalities. This implies
48
and water; creating multiple options for the recycling,
reuse and remanufacturing of materials; and promoting
car-free mobility. These substantial changes are not
easy to make, particularly at the scale, and within the
timeframe, in which urgent action is needed to achieve
the globally agreed goals.
One overarching lesson is that it is unrealistic to expect
any one actor to play a transformational role working
-
ities and agency to take the necessary action, while
national governments often fail to fully understand
and respond to city-scale and territorial challenges and
inequities. Single national-level policies, incentives
aimed at only a limited number of actors (such as
measures targeted to modify existing behaviour) and
technological improvements are unlikely to achieve
much more than isolated changes. Furthermore, many
existing programmes and policies are geared towards
technocratic transitions that do not recognize the
critical role that citizens need to play in driving forward
urban transformation.
An argument was made at the beginning of the chapter
for new forms of urban and territorial collibration. It is
clear that negotiating any new forms of governance
requires a moral and political compass that places
the protection of human and non-human rights as the
central focus, while working to advance the collective
social and ecological functions of cities and their
surrounding territories. This will require a strengthening
of the collective capacities, power and resources of
urban dwellers vis-à-vis public authorities, which can
lay the foundations for more equitable processes and
outcomes.
Based on this analysis of renaturing urbanization, it is
recommended that LRGs, national governments and
their allies consider the following practical actions:
° It is necessary to give serious consideration to
fostering and supporting the capacity for more
collibratory modes of governance. In all likelihood,
such a capacity already exists in one form or another.
In some cities, it will already be well-developed,
while in others it may be only embryonic. Such
capacity must spread and be developed amongst
locally elected leaders, universities, NGOs, business
associations and even within LRG administrations.
While these established, or currently embryonic,
forms have emerged in response to the need to
reconcile complexity with directionality, their role is
GOLD VI REPORT

still often not formally, or even informally, recognized
by key stakeholders. This means their contribution
is under-appreciated and this can result in a lack of
resources to sustain them.
° Joining international data-sharing networks and
building up the capacity to understand urban
solutions is critical. These initiatives could result
in a reduction in total resource usage at the whole
city level and greater resource equality within the
city. The principles of the circular economy and the
increasing importance of the water-food-energy
nexus suggest that these three sectors could
soon become the main focus of city-wide and
neighbourhood-level interventions to reduce the
material footprint of cities.
° Based on a thorough review of multisectoral planning
and regulatory instruments for fostering greening, it
is key to create an integrated perspective that ensures
that the expansion of greening is predominantly
about social inclusion and reconnecting everyone
to natural systems. This perspective should aim to
harmonize the various interventions that seek to
connect natural systems for aesthetic, cultural, health
and livelihood reasons.
Source: Diogo Monteiro, JB Litoral.
Fishermen protesting against Paranagua’s Port Complex expansion, Brazil, June 2021.
07 RENATURING
6 RENATURINg URBANIzATIoN FoR A JUST URBAN TRANSITIoN
° Bringing social justice into the renaturing of
urbanization will require a combination of LRG
action and civil society-based action. It will require
creating the kinds of planning interventions and
institutional arrangements that are necessary to
promote and support rights-based approaches.
The discussion about using CLTs to decommodify
urban assets, and about various other strategies
to foster and promote urban commons, is a case in
particularly important. However, what ultimately
matters is the removal of key urban properties
from the property market. This will ensure that
bottom-up social investments and top-down
public or social-impact investments do not result
in neighbourhood improvements that ultimately end
and investment came from them.
As a pathway toward achieving greater urban and
territorial equality, renaturing relies on concerted and
politically radical action across different scales and
on delivering a social and environmentally just future
for everyone.
49
BIBLIogRAPhy

Bibliography
Infographic notes
(a) IPCC, ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Valérie Masson-Delmotte and Panmao Zhai (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, 2021).

(b) IPCC, ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’, 2022, 36–183, https://bit.ly/3xNW3p6.

(c) IPCC, 6, 23–24, 27.

(d) IPCC, 6–29.

(e) IPCC, 6–26.

(f) IPCC, 6–29.

(g) UN, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals Report’, 2021, https://bit.ly/39lBreP.

(h) UN.

(i) IPCC, ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’, 6–96.

(j) IPCC, ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ Key measures for cities.

(k) Mark Swilling et al., ‘The Weight of Cities. Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization’ (Nairobi, 2018), https://bit.ly/39b2NUq.

References
Agyeman, Julian. Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. New York: New York University Press, 2005.

Aichi, ANAAE, Government of Catalonia, Government of Ontario, Government of Québec, Government of Sao Paulo, and Government of
Gangwon. “Group of Leading Subnational Governments toward Aichi Biodiversity Targets,” 2022. https://bit.ly/3OL8hFK.

Allen, Adriana. “Navigating Stigma through Everyday City-Making: Gendered Trajectories, Politics and Outcomes in the Periphery of Lima.”
Urban Studies 59, no. 3 (2022): 490–508.

Allen, Adriana, and Jeb Brugmann. “Achieving Urban Transformation: From Visions to Pathways.” In GEO for Cities - Towards Green and Just Cities,
edited by UNEP and UNHSP, 95–124. UN-Habitat, 2021. https://bit.ly/3KaT2SN.

Environmental Justice and Urban Resilience in the Global South. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2017.

Allen, Peter M. “Cities and Regions as Evolutionary Complex Systems.” Journal of Geographical Systems 4, no. 1 (1995): 103–30.

Almansi, Florencia. “Regularizing Land Tenure within Upgrading Programmes in Argentina; the Cases of Promeba and Rosario Hábitat.”
Environment and Urbanization 21, no. 2 (2009): 389–413.

Urban Environmental Justice.” Journal of Planning Literature 31, no. 1 (2016): 23–36.

50 GOLD VI REPORT
 BIBLIogRAPhy

Anguelovski, Isabelle, Anna Livia Brand, James Connolly, Esteve Corbera, Panagiota Kotsila, Justin Steil, Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, et al.
“Expanding the Boundaries of Justice in Urban Greening Scholarship: Toward an Emancipatory, Antisubordination, Intersectional, and Relational
Approach.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 110, no. 6 (2020): 1743–69.

Anguelovski, Isabelle, and James Connolly. The Green City and Social Injustice: 21 Tales from North America and Europe. London: Routledge, 2022.

———. “Three Histories of Greening and Whiteness in American Cities.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9 (2021): 621783.

Anguelovski, Isabelle, James Connolly, and Anna Livia Brand. “From Landscapes of Utopia to the Margins of the Green Urban Life.” City 22, no. 3
(2018): 417–36.

Anguelovski, Isabelle, James Connolly, Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Helen Cole, and Hamil Pearsall. “New Scholarly Pathways on Green
Progress in Human Geography 43, no. 6 (2019): 1064–1086.

Anguelovski, Isabelle, Clara Irazábal-Zurita, and James Connolly. “Grabbed Urban Landscapes: Socio-Spatial Tensions in Green Infrastructure
Planning in Medellín.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43, no. 1 (2019): 133–56.

Arnold, Pierre, and Nina Quintas. “Global Study: Community-Led Housing in the COVID-19 Context,” 2020. https://bit.ly/37bV4ER.

AUDIAR Rennes. “Modélisation des trames vertes et bleues.” Rennes, 2020. https://bit.ly/3KhJzt9.

———. “SCoT du Pays de Rennes - Tableau de Bord.” Rennes, 2020. https://bit.ly/3EMDyDu.

Barcelona City Council. “Barcelona Superblock,” 2022. https://bit.ly/3vEgD9f.

———. “Care Superblocks Recognised for Their Comprehensive Assistance.” Info Barcelona, 2020. https://bit.ly/3vKdgO4.

Barcelona Public Health Agency. “Superilles.” Salut als carrers, 2021. https://bit.ly/3MuGes0.

Baró, Francesc, Amalia Calderón-Argelich, Johannes Langemeyer, and James Connolly. “Under One Canopy? Assessing the Distributional
Environmental Science & Policy 102 (2019): 54–64.

Beatley, Timothy. Biophilic Cities. Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010.

Boone, Christopher G., Geoffrey L. Buckley, J. Morgan Grove, and Chona Sister. “Parks and People: An Environmental Justice Inquiry in
Baltimore, Maryland.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99, no. 4 (2009): 767–87.

Boone, Christopher G., Mary L. Cadenasso, J. Morgan Grove, Kirsten Schwarz, and Geoffrey L. Buckley. “Landscape, Vegetation Characteristics,
and Group Identity in an Urban and Suburban Watershed: Why the 60s Matter.” Urban Ecosystems 13 (2010): 255–271.

Brenner, Neil. Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2014.

Bulkeley, Harriet, Gareth A.S. Edwards, and Sara Fuller. “Contesting Climate Justice in the City: Examining Politics and Practice in Urban
Climate Change Experiments.” Global Environmental Change 25, no. 1 (2014): 31–40.

C40 Cities. “Green & Just Recovery Agenda.” What we do, 2022. https://bit.ly/3vDDn9C.

———. “Umoja Estate: Nairobi Turns Organic Waste Into Clean Energy Biogas.” Case Studies, 2019. https://bit.ly/3kcuyhq.

Cabannes, Yves. “Contribution of Participatory Budgeting to Provision and Management of Basic Services: Municipal Practices and Evidence
from the Field.” London, 2014. https://bit.ly/3MwMrE4.

Cabannes, Yves, and Barbara Lipietz. “The Democratic Contribution of Participatory Budgeting PDF Logo.” LSE Department of International
Development Working Paper Series. London, 2015. https://bit.ly/3OGmrrM.

Calderón-Argelich, Amalia, Stefania Benetti, Isabelle Anguelovski, James Connolly, Johannes Langemeyer, and Francesc Baró. “Tracing and
Building up Environmental Justice Considerations in the Urban Ecosystem Service Literature: A Systematic Review.” Landscape and Urban
Planning 214 (2021): 104130.

Carrión, Valeria. ‘Building Resilience with Nature: Restoring Ecosystems and Communities through Public Policies’. GOLD VI Pathways to
Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Chapuis, Jean-Yves. Rennes, La ville archipel. Entretiens avec Jean Viard. Rennes: Librairie Durance, 2013.

Clos, Joan. “Introduction.” In The Quito Papers and the New Urban Agenda, edited by UN-Habitat. London: Routledge, 2018.

Coelho, Karina. ‘Caiçaras, Artisanal Fishermen, and Guarani M’byá’s Territories between Protected Areas and Paranagua’s Port’. GOLD VI
Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

CoHabitat. “Karise Permatopia,” 2020. https://bit.ly/3xYBBmh.

CoHabitat Network. ‘Fighting Climate Change in Cities’. GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Cole, Helen, Galia Shokry, James Connolly, Carmen Pérez-del-Pulgar, Jordi Alonso, and Isabelle Anguelovski. “Can Healthy Cities Be Made Really
Healthy?” The Lancet Public Health 2, no. 9 (2017): 394–95.

07 RENATURING 51
BIBLIogRAPhy

Cole, Helen V.S., Isabelle Anguelovski, James Connolly, Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Carmen Pérez-del-Pulgar, Galia Shokry, and Margarita
Triguero-Mas. “Adapting the Environmental Risk Transition Theory for Urban Health Inequities: An Observational Study Examining Complex
Environmental Riskscapes in Seven Neighborhoods in Global North Cities.” Social Science & Medicine 277 (2021): 113907.

Janeiro.” City 22, no. 5–6 (2018): 633–56.

Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions.” Nature Food 2 (2021): 198–209.

Currie, Paul Klugman. “A Resource Flow Typology of African Cities.” Stellenbosch University, 2015. https://bit.ly/3MlwLmX.

D’Amour, Christopher Bren, Femke Reitsma, Giovanni Baiocchi, Stephan Barthel, Burak Güneralp, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl, and Felix
Creutzig. “Future Urban Land Expansion and Implications for Global Croplands.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 34
(2016): 8939–44.

Dias, Sonia Maria. “The Municipal Waste and Citizenship Forum: A Platform for Social Inclusion and Participation.” WIEGO Policy Brief, 2011.
https://bit.ly/3rO64Q4.

Dias, Sonia Maria, Ricardo Abussafy, Juliana Gonçalves, and João Pedro Martins. “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Inclusive Recycling in
Brazil,” 2020. https://bit.ly/3vMGnAe.

International Journal of Urban and Regional

Research 33, no. 3 (2009): 621–39.

Euroheat & Power. “Eco-Village ‘Permatopia’ Rolling out a Sustainable Future.” Case Study, 2017. https://bit.ly/3rTcXzr.

Expat in Denmark. “Interview with Kennet from Karise Permatopia,” 2017. https://bit.ly/3KexwfV.

Faburel, Guillaume. Les métropoles barbares : démondialiser la ville, désurbaniser la terre. Paris: Le Passager Clandestin, 2019.

Fainstein, Susan S. The Just City. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010.

Garcia-Chueca, Eva, and Lorenzo Vidal. Advancing Urban Rights: Equality and Diversity in the City. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2022.

Gehl, Jan. Cities for People. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010.

González, Gustavo. “Parque Las Vegas.” Archivo BAQ, 2018. https://bit.ly/39h8T5J.

Government of Catalonia. “Barcelona Low Emission Zone.” News, 2022. https://bit.ly/3xNH3rW.

Growing Up Boulder. “15-Minute Neighborhoods.” Boulder, 2015. https://bit.ly/398GcYt.

Guénette, Louise. “Rosario, Argentina — A City Hooked on Urban Farming.” IDRC Case Study, 2010. https://bit.ly/3Lg6IgI.

Habitat International Coalition. ‘Reviving Urban Agriculture’. GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Neighbourhoods for the Future: A Plea for a Social and

Ecological Urbanism. Amsterdam: Valiz Trancity, 2022.

Heynen, Nik. “Urban Political Ecology I: The Urban Century.” Progress in Human Geography 34, no. 4 (2014): 598–604.

Heynen, Nik, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw. In the Nature of Cities. Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. London:
Routledge, 2006.

Hodson, Mike, Simon Marvin, Blake Robinson, and Mark Swilling. “Reshaping Urban Infrastructure: Material Flow Analysis and Transitions
Analysis in an Urban Context.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 16, no. 6 (2012): 789–800.

“The Impact of COVID-19 on Public Space: An Early Review of the Emerging Questions – Design, Perceptions and Inequities.” Cities & Health, 2020.
https://bit.ly/3EHfHVM.

Horne, Ralph. Housing Sustainability in Low Carbon Cities. London: Routledge, 2018.

IFAD. “Transforming Food Systems for Rural Prosperity.” Roma, 2021. https://bit.ly/3OEq2Xh.

IPCC. “Summary for Policymakers.” In Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by Valérie Masson-Delmotte and Panmao Zhai. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, 2021.

Johannesburg, City of. “Inclusionary Housing Incentives, Regulations and Mechanisms.” Johannesburg, 2018. https://bit.ly/3kiS6RL.

Karise Permatopia. “Oplev Permatopia,” 2022. https://bit.ly/36LkSHG.

52 GOLD VI REPORT
 BIBLIogRAPhy

Khamlichi, Hajar, and Karim Elgendy. ‘Energy Transition of Chefchaouen City’. GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing.
Barcelona, 2022.

Kisembo, Teddy, Judith Mbabazi, and Paul I. Mukwaya. ‘Community Based Production of Waste-Based Energy, Kampala, Uganda’. GOLD VI
Pathways to Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Kuo, Lily. “Inside Chengdu: Can China’s Megacity Version of the Garden City Work?” The Guardian, 2019. https://bit.ly/38n7hXm.

Lerner, Josh, and Daniel Schugurensky. “Who Learns What in Participatory Democracy?” In Democratic Practices as Learning Opportunities,
85–100. Leiden: Brill, 2007. https://bit.ly/3rQBg0K.

Levy, Caren, Adriana Allen, Vanesa Castán Broto, and Linda Westman. “Unlocking Urban Trajectories: Planning for Environmentally Just
Transitions in Asia.” In Sustainable Cities in Asia, edited by Federico Caprotti and Li Yu. London: Routledge, 2017.

Liotta, Charlotte, Yann Kervinio, Harold Levrel, and Léa Tardieu. “Planning for Environmental Justice - Reducing Well-Being Inequalities
through Urban Greening.” Environmental Science & Policy 112 (2020): 47–60.

Liu, Li, and Marina Bergen Jensen. “Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Water Management: Practices of Five Forerunner Cities.” Cities
74, no. 126–133 (2018).

Márquez, Leonardo. “‘Great City’: A primeira cidade para pedestres do mundo estaria na China.” ArchDaily, 2012. https://bit.ly/3OWZdxC.

Martine, George, Gordon McGranahan, Mark Montgomery, and Rogelio Fernandez-Castilla. The New Global Frontier. Urbanization, Poverty and
Environment in the 21st Century. London: Routledge, 2008.

Mavoa, Suzanne, Mohammad Javad Koohsari, Hannah M. Badland, Melanie Davern, Xiaoqi Feng, Thomas Astell-Burt, and Billie Giles-Corti.
“Area-Level Disparities of Public Open Space: A Geographic Information Systems Analysis in Metropolitan Melbourne.” Urban Policy and Research
33, no. 3 (2015): 306–23.

Mazzucato, Mariana. The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato. London: Allen Lane, 2018.

Mazzucato, Mariana, Mzukisi Qobo, and Rainer Kattel. “Building State Capacities and Dynamic Capabilities to Drive Social Change: The Case of
South Africa.” UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Working Paper Series. London, 2021. https://bit.ly/3vF9vtp.

Meerow, Sara, and Joshua P. Newell. “Spatial Planning for Multifunctional Green Infrastructure: Growing Resilience in Detroit.” Landscape and
Urban Planning 159 (2017): 62–75.

Mees, Heleen L.P., Peter P.J. Driessen, Hens A.C. Runhaar, and Jennifer Stamatelos. “Who Governs Climate Adaptation? Getting Green Roofs for
Stormwater Retention off the Ground.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 56, no. 6 (2013): 802–25.

Messias, Rodrigo (UCLG Ecological Transition). ‘Cities and Regions Race to Zero – Local Decarbonization Pathways’. GOLD VI Pathways to
Equality Cases Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Mostafavi, Mohsen. “Why Ecological Urbanism? Why Now?” In Infrastructure Sustainability and Design, edited by Spiro Pollalis, Andreas
Georgoulias, Stephen Ramos, and Daniel Schodek. London: Routledge, 2012.

Mueller, Natalie, David Rojas-Rueda, Haneen Khreis, Marta Cirach, David Andrés, Joan Ballester, Xavier Bartoll, et al. “Changing the Urban
Design of Cities for Health: The Superblock Model.” Environment International 134 (2020): 105132.

Nairobi City County. The Nairobi City County Solid Waste Management Act (2015). https://bit.ly/3KeR0kw.

———. The Nairobi City County Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act (2015). https://bit.ly/3LjBfdC.

Nantes Métropole et Ville. “Espaces verts et environnement,” 2022. https://bit.ly/3MkaoOK.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. Empire, Global Coloniality and African Subjectivity. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013.

O’Sullivan, Feargus. “Paris Mayor: It’s Time for a ’15-Minute City.” Bloomberg, 2020. https://bloom.bg/3KeHz4S.

Oscilowicz, Emilia. “Policy and Planning Toolkit for Urban Green Justice.” Green Inequalities, 2021. https://bit.ly/3Kaes2F.

Pérez-del-Pulgar, Carmen. “Prioritizing Green and Social Goals: The Progressive Vienna Model in Jeopardy.” In The Green City and Social
Injustice: 21 Tales from North America and Europe, edited by Isabelle Anguelovski and James Connolly. London: Routledge, 2021.

Preiser, Rika, Reinette Biggs, Alta De Vos, and Carl Folke. “Social-Ecological Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems: Organizing Principles for
Advancing Research Methods and Approaches.” Ecology and Society 23, no. 4 (2018).

Raja, Samina, Kevin Morgan, and Enjoli Hall. “Planning for Equitable Urban and Regional Food Systems.” Built Environment 43, no. 3 (2017):
309–14.

Ravetz, Joe. City-Region 2020: Integrated Planning for a Sustainable Environment. London: Routledge, 2000.

Rennes Ville et Métropole. “Rennes, ville bourricière,” 2017. https://bit.ly/3Mu6Byu.

07 RENATURING 53
BIBLIogRAPhy

Rigolon, Alessandro. “A Complex Landscape of Inequity in Access to Urban Parks: A Literature Review.” Landscape and Urban Planning 153 (2016):
160–69.

Rigolon, Alessandro, Matthew Browning, and Viniece Jennings. “Inequities in the Quality of Urban Park Systems: An Environmental Justice
Investigation of Cities in the United States.” Landscape and Urban Planning 178 (2018): 156–69.

Rosenberg, Greg, and Jeffrey Yuen. “Beyond Housing: Urban Agriculture and Commercial Development by Community Land Trusts.” Lincoln
Institute of Land Policy Working Paper, 2012. https://bit.ly/3kaKtx1.

Samson, Melanie. “The Political Work of Waste Picker Integration.” In The Informal Economy Revisited: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future,
edited by Martha Alter Chen and Françoise Carré, 195–200. London: Routledge, 2020.

Schandl, Heinz, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, James West, Stefan Giljum, Monika Dittrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Arne Geschke, et al. “Global Material
Flows and Resource Productivity: Forty Years of Evidence.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 22, no. 4 (2017): 827–38.

Schlosberg, David. “Reconceiving Environmental Justice: Global Movements And Political Theories.” Environmental Politics 13, no. 3 (2004):
517–40.

Schwarz, Kirsten, Michail Fragkias, Christopher G. Boone, Weiqi Zhou, Melissa McHale, J. Morgan Grove, Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, et al. “Trees Grow
on Money: Urban Tree Canopy Cover and Environmental Justice.” PLoS ONE 10, no. 4 (2015): e0122051.

Secretariat, MUFPP. “Milan Urban Food Policy Pact,” 2022. https://bit.ly/3EMmNbs.

Shemkus, Sarah. “Boston Zoning Change Would Require Net-Zero Emissions from New Buildings.” Energy News Network, 2021.
https://bit.ly/3MupBg9.

Shevlin, Mark, Orla McBride, Jamie Murphy, Jilly Gibson Miller, Todd K. Hartman, Liat Levita, Liam Mason, et al. “Anxiety, Depression, Traumatic
Stress and COVID-19-Related Anxiety in the UK General Population during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” BJPsych Open 6, no. 6 (2020): 125.

Slum Dwellers International. ‘Partnership for Resilient Citywide Slum Upgrading, Cape Town, South Africa’. GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases
Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Smith, Harry, and Tony Hernández. “Take a Stand, Own the Land Dudley Neighbors Inc., a Community Land Trust in Boston, Massachusetts.”
In On Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust, edited by John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed, and María E.
Hernández-Torrales, 283–294. Madison: Terra Nostra Press, 2020.

Steinberg, Florian. “Strategic Urban Planning in Latin America: Experiences of Building and Managing the Future.” Habitat International 29, no. 1
(2005): 69–93.

“Sustainability Institute,” 2022. https://bit.ly/393Zm1A.

Swilling, Mark. The Age of Sustainability. Just Transitions in a Complex World. London: Routledge, 2020.

Environmental Research Letters 12, no. 12 (2017): 125007.

Swilling, Mark, Maarten Hajer, Tim Baynes, Joe Bergesen, Françoise Labbé, Josephine Kaviti Musango, Anu Ramaswami, Blake Robinson, Serge
Salat, and Sangwon Suh. “The Weight of Cities. Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization.” Nairobi, 2018. https://bit.ly/39b2NUq.

Thompson, Bella. “Why Local Food Can Restore Our Failing Food System.” Sustainable Food Trust, 2021. https://bit.ly/36L483g.

Tochi Alozie, Modesta, Vanesa Castán Broto, Patty Romero-Lankao, Pedro Henrique Campello Torres, and Matteo Muratori. ‘Sustainable Energy
Access in Urban Areas’. GOLD VI Working Paper Series. Barcelona, 2022.

UCLG World Forum of Regions. “Smart Territories in the Urban Era.” Barcelona, 2021. https://bit.ly/3OxvBGZ.

UN Climate Change High-Level Champions. “Race to Zero.” UNFCCC, 2022. https://bit.ly/39fdMw5.

UNCDF. “Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility,” 2022. https://bit.ly/3KdzgGj.

UNDESA. “State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples,” 2009. https://bit.ly/3EKSeD2.

———. “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision.” New York, 2019. https://bit.ly/3L7nEWT.

UNDP. “Human Development Report 1998.” Oxford, 1998. https://bit.ly/38aJ6eS.

———. “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” Division for Sustainable Development Goals. New York, 2015.
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E.

Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona. “Superblocks,” 2020. https://bit.ly/38q4RHS.

https://bit.ly/3vzXFRe.

Vert le Jardin. “C’est quoi Vert le Jardin ?,” 2022. https://bit.ly/3veRDGA.

54 GOLD VI REPORT
 BIBLIogRAPhy

The Guardian, 2014. https://bit.ly/3rRjjiW.

Wiedmann, Thomas O., Heinz Schandl, Manfred Lenzen, Daniel Moran, Sangwon Suh, James West, and Keiichiro Kanemoto. “The Material
Footprint of Nations.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 20 (2013): 6271–76.

WIEGO. ‘Building Resilience in Times of Crisis: The Waste & Citizenship Forum in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’. GOLD VI Pathways to Equality Cases
Repository: Renaturing. Barcelona, 2022.

Wilmott, John. “Have You Been to the World’s Greenest City?” The Telegraph, 2020. https://bit.ly/3rPYqEC.

Wolch, Jennifer R., Jason Byrne, and Joshua P. Newell. “Urban Green Space, Public Health, and Environmental Justice: The Challenge of
Making Cities ‘Just Green Enough.’” Landscape and Urban Planning 125 (2014): 234–44.

World Bank. “City Climate Finance Gap Fund.” Brief, 2021. https://bit.ly/38nVBE5.

Wüstemann, Henry, Dennis Kalisch, and Jens Kolbe. “Access to Urban Green Space and Environmental Inequalities in Germany.” Landscape and
Urban Planning 164 (2017): 124–31.

Yeung, Peter. “How ‘15-Minute Cities’ Will Change the Way We Socialise.” BBC News, 2021. https://bbc.in/3rRgnmq.

Zografos, Christos, Kai A. Klause, James Connolly, and Isabelle Anguelovski. “The Everyday Politics of Urban Transformational Adaptation:
Struggles for Authority and the Barcelona Superblock Project.” Cities 99 (2020): 102613.

Evaluation of Heat Mitigation Measures at the Micro-Scale.” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 20 (2016): 305–16.

07 RENATURING 55